The table provides clues for the roots of words in today's NY Times Spelling Bee. You're responsible for prefixes, suffixes, tense changes, plurals, doubling consonants before suffixes, and alternate spellings of roots. The TL;DR about the site comes after the table.
Past clues are available here
Table content
| words | root 1st letter | clue |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | A | Extraterrestrial (“In space no one can hear you scream”) |
| 1 | A | (Bio term) 1 of 2 or more versions of a gene |
| 1 | A | Uptight, or butt-related; adj. |
| 1 | A | Yearly record book |
| 1 | A | Heat then cool metal or glass slowly to toughen it |
| 1 | A | $ to join a poker game, or “before” prefix |
| 1 | A | Before birth; usually written as PRE–... |
| 2 | A | It picks up TV or radio signals |
| 1 | A | Opposed to (prefix), NOT uncle’s wife nickname |
| 1 | A | Succeed in getting, or reach; verb (…nirvana) |
| 1 | A | Archaic verb meaning to corrupt |
| 1 | A | Flowering rhododendron shrub |
| 1 | E | Consume food |
| 1 | E | Énérgy, stylé, énthusiasm; from Frénch |
| 1 | E | Make someone ecstatically happy, verb |
| 1 | E | Involve something as a necessary consequence: "the job ...s a lot of hard work" |
| 1 | I | Stupid, silly, ridiculous (…questions or comments); adj. |
| 2 | I | First (letter, as in J.R.R. Tolkien) |
| 1 | I | Cause to begin, or admit into a secret society; verb; or novice, noun |
| 1 | I | Present from birth (…behavior), adj. |
| 1 | L | Hawaiian island or porch |
| 1 | L | Small road (Beatles’ Penny… or Superman’s Lois…) |
| 1 | L | Tropical perennial flowering plant in the verbena family |
| 2 | L | Running behind (I’m…for class), or deceased (The…Charles Grodin) |
| 1 | L | Ancient Roman triangular sail on a long yard at an angle of 45° to the mast |
| 1 | L | Capable of emerging, developing, or becoming active in the future (a…fingerprint) |
| 1 | L | Coffee with espresso & steamed milk |
| 1 | L | Put something down |
| 1 | L | Relax, idle (…about) |
| 2 | L | Not fatty (…meat), adj.; or incline (…back in your chair) |
| 1 | L | Illumination (Let there be…); noun/verb |
| 1 | L | A queue, what you wait in for your turn |
| 1 | N | Indiaan flaat breaad |
| 1 | N | Spike that’s hammered, noun/verb |
| 1 | N | Grandma, slang; or Peter Pan dog |
| 1 | N | Latin adj. relating to place or time of birth |
| 1 | N | Swimming or floating adj. from Latin |
| 2 | N | Tidy |
| 1 | T | Dogs wag this hind appendage |
| 1 | T | Smear of corruption or pollution, noun/verb |
| 1 | T | Story (fairy…), NOT what dogs wag; noun |
| 1 | T | Natural aptitude or skill (…show) |
| 1 | T | Of greater than average height, adj. |
| 1 | T | Ankle bone |
| 1 | T | Brown chemical in tea & wine used to preserve leather, noun |
| 1 | T | Excite someone's senses or desires |
| 1 | T | Rat out your sibling to your parents |
| 1 | T | Someone who rats out a sibling (compound) |
| 1 | T | Blue-green color, or a duck with a stripe of that color |
| 1 | T | Nipple |
| 1 | T | Revealing, compound adj.; or indication, compound noun (Poe’s “The…Heart”) |
| 1 | T | Person a landlord rents to |
| 1 | T | Move into a sloping position, or fight windmills (…at) |
| 1 | T | Pre-Olympic god, largest Saturn moon, or industry bigwig |
| 1 | T | Stimulate or excite, especially in a sexual way |
| 1 | Z | Fervor, passion, from Jewish sect that opposed Romans |
| 1 | Z | Sixth letter of the Greek alphabet |
| 1 | Z | Sunflower within the daisy family (what other flower starts with Z?) |
This site provides clues for a day's New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle. It exists to make it easier for Kevin Davis to take a day off. Most of the clues come from him. There may be some startup problems, but long term I think I can put the clues together with no more than half an hour's work.
The "Bee Roots" approach is to provide explicit clues for root words, not every word. This is similar to what Kevin Davis does, but without information about parts of speech As logophiles, we are pretty good at putting on prefixes and suffixes, changing tense, and forming plurals (including Latin plurals!). The clues cover root words, arranged alphabetically by root word, with a count of words in the puzzle that come from each root. For example, if a puzzle includes ROAM and ROAMING, there will be a clue for ROAM and a count of 2. The root may not appear in the puzzle at all; for example, the 2021-07-23 Bee included ICED, DEICE, and DEICED. For such a puzzle, the clue would be for ICE with a word count of 3.
The Bee Roots approach involves judgement sometimes. For example, if a puzzle includes LOVE, LOVED, and LOVELY, how many roots are needed to cover them? LOVE and LOVED share the root LOVE, certainly, but LOVELY is tricky. LOVE is part of its etymology, but by now, the word means "exquisitely beautiful," which is a lot farther from the meaning of LOVE than swithcing to past tense. I'm inclined to treat LOVE and LOVELY as separate roots. You may not agree, which is fine. Another thing we logophiles share is a LOVE of arguing about words on Twitter.
One last complication, until another one pops up: a few roots have multiple spellings, for example LOLLYGAG and LALLYGAG. Depending on the day's letters, and maybe even the editor's whims, one or both could be in the puzzle's answer list. With such roots, you could see a word count of 2, even if there are no applicable prefixes or suffixes.
I will do my best to keep this site up to date and helpful (I hope). Check it out, and tweet feedback to @donswartwout Tweet to @donswartwout
Many thanks to Kevin Davis, whose 4,500-word clue list made this possible.