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
| clue # | words covered | root 1st letter | clue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | A | Garlic mayonnaise, from French for garlic |
| 2 | 1 | A | Apportion $ or other resource (time, e.g.) |
| 3 | 1 | A | Hawaiian greeting |
| 4 | 1 | A | Sax smaller than a tenor, or voice higher than one |
| 5 | 1 | A | Uptight, or butt-related; adj. |
| 6 | 1 | A | Yearly record book |
| 7 | 1 | A | Utterly destroy, obliterate |
| 8 | 1 | A | Ceremonially smear someone with oil, or designate as a successor |
| 9 | 1 | A | Soon, poetically |
| 10 | 1 | A | Mound made by industrious six-legged creatures |
| 11 | 1 | A | Opposed to (prefix), NOT uncle’s wife nickname |
| 12 | 1 | A | Coral island (Bikini, e.g.) |
| 13 | 1 | A | Succeed in getting, or reach; verb (…nirvana) |
| 14 | 1 | A | Archaic verb meaning to corrupt |
| 15 | 1 | H | Frozen rain “stone,” noun; or summon a taxi, verb |
| 16 | 1 | H | Kosher in Islam |
| 17 | 1 | H | Corridor, or Let’s Make a Deal’s Monty |
| 18 | 1 | H | Nimbus (ring of light or glowing cloud) atop a saint, or Xbox shooter game |
| 19 | 1 | H | Come to a complete & sudden stop, verb |
| 20 | 1 | H | Archaic 3rd person singular present form of "possess" (Hell…no fury) |
| 21 | 1 | H | Yoga type that pairs poses with breathing |
| 22 | 2 | I | The phase of breathing that expands your chest |
| 23 | 1 | I | First (letter, as in J.R.R. Tolkien) |
| 24 | 1 | I | Cause to begin, or admit into a secret society; verb; or novice, noun |
| 25 | 1 | I | Atom or molecule with a net electric charge |
| 26 | 1 | I | 9th Greek letter, I; or extremely small amount |
| 27 | 1 | L | Hawaiian island or porch |
| 28 | 1 | L | Sheep (wool) oil, used as skin moisturizer |
| 29 | 1 | L | Tropical perennial flowering plant in the verbena family |
| 30 | 1 | L | Flat strip of wood, often plastered as wallboard |
| 31 | 1 | L | Put something down |
| 32 | 1 | L | Illumination (Let there be…); noun/verb |
| 33 | 1 | L | South American grassy plain |
| 34 | 1 | L | Borrowed $, noun/verb |
| 35 | 1 | L | Reluctant (to), adj.; often confused with verb ending in E meaning “hate” |
| 36 | 1 | N | Indiaan flaat breaad |
| 37 | 1 | N | Spike that’s hammered, noun/verb |
| 38 | 1 | N | Grandma, slang; or Peter Pan dog |
| 39 | 1 | N | Latin adj. relating to place or time of birth |
| 40 | 1 | N | Swimming or floating adj. from Latin |
| 41 | 2 | N | Country, or temperance activist Carrie |
| 42 | 2 | N | Write something, for example music, in a specialized system |
| 43 | 1 | N | Vague idea, or small sewing accessory |
| 44 | 1 | O | Vow or pledge (you’re under one in court testimony) |
| 45 | 1 | T | Middle Eastern sesame seed paste or sauce |
| 46 | 1 | T | Dogs wag this hind appendage |
| 47 | 1 | T | Smear of corruption or pollution, noun/verb |
| 48 | 1 | T | Of greater than average height, adj. |
| 49 | 1 | T | A bird of prey's claw |
| 50 | 1 | T | Ankle bone |
| 51 | 1 | T | Brown chemical in tea & wine used to preserve leather, noun |
| 52 | 1 | T | Skin “ink” |
| 53 | 1 | T | Comparison word (smaller…a breadbox) |
| 54 | 1 | T | Pronoun for the other thing (this &…) |
| 55 | 1 | T | Move into a sloping position, or fight windmills (…at) |
| 56 | 1 | T | Pre-Olympic god, largest Saturn moon, or industry bigwig |
| 57 | 1 | T | Stimulate or excite, especially in a sexual way |
| 58 | 3 | T | Character of sound, a sound (dial or ring-); noun; give greater strength or firmness to a body or a muscle; verb |
| 59 | 1 | T | The whole amount (sum of numbers, e.g.) |
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.