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 | Grass for hay, or Little Rascal |
| 2 | 1 | A | (Bio term) 1 of 2 or more versions of a gene |
| 3 | 1 | A | Permit, verb |
| 4 | 1 | A | Sunburn gel from “…vera” plant |
| 5 | 1 | A | Cool & distant in behavior, adj.; anagram of bath sponge |
| 6 | 1 | A | Horrify (his tasteless jokes … me) |
| 7 | 2 | A | Ask for a court ruling to be reversed, verb/noun |
| 8 | 1 | A | 1 of these fruits a day keeps the doctor away |
| 9 | 1 | F | Fried chickpea balls often served in pita |
| 10 | 1 | F | Autumn, noun; or plummet, verb |
| 11 | 1 | F | Statistical decrease, or result of slipping while on a ladder; compound |
| 12 | 1 | F | Crop field left dormant, adj. |
| 13 | 1 | F | ♂, slang (young or little…) |
| 14 | 1 | F | What Old Glory does in the breeze, or what birds do to their wings to take off; verb |
| 15 | 1 | F | Imperfection |
| 16 | 1 | F | Hopping insect whose bites cause itching in dogs & cats |
| 17 | 1 | F | Baby horse or other equine, noun/verb |
| 18 | 1 | L | Jacket edge that’s folded back |
| 19 | 1 | L | Nissan electric car; 4 of these on a clover is lucky |
| 20 | 1 | L | Forceful jump (of faith?), noun/verb |
| 21 | 1 | L | Unit of bread, noun; or idle (...around), verb |
| 22 | 1 | L | Bath sponge |
| 23 | 1 | O | Entrails & organs used as food |
| 24 | 1 | O | Gemstone from Australia, October birthstone |
| 25 | 1 | P | Spanish rice, saffron, chicken, and seafood dish |
| 26 | 1 | P | Traditional Mexican shelter roofed with palm leaves or branches, esp. on a beach, noun |
| 27 | 1 | P | White-faced, NOT a bucket |
| 28 | 1 | P | Figurative dark cloud, or funeral "bearer" |
| 29 | 1 | P | Arthropod antenna for touch & taste, or start of medical exam by touch term |
| 30 | 1 | P | Father, slang |
| 31 | 1 | P | Pontiff adj. |
| 32 | 1 | P | Mechanical component that engages with another component to prevent movement in one direction |
| 33 | 2 | P | Another name for papaya |
| 34 | 1 | P | Any of three very large terrestrial pheasants, often raised as ornamental because of their colorful, iridescent plumage (includes longtime NBC mascot) |
| 35 | 1 | P | Repeated bell ringing or laughter |
| 36 | 1 | P | Urgent request (Mercy!), or court statement of guilt or innocence |
| 37 | 1 | P | Daddy |
| 38 | 1 | W | Dish made from batter cooked between two patterned plates, usually part of breakfast, noun; fail to make up one's mind, verb |
| 39 | 1 | W | Ridge on fabric (corduroy, e.g.) or a ship (gun-…), homophone of large marine mammal (humpback, e.g.) |
| 40 | 1 | W | Barrier between rooms, or Pink Floyd album ("The...") |
| 41 | 1 | W | Strike or hit very hard |
| 42 | 1 | W | Roll around in mud, or indulge "in" emotion (misery, self-pity) |
| 43 | 1 | W | Archaic noun for that which is best for someone or something (common-…); remove –THY from end of rich synonym |
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.