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 | Indifference |
| 2 | 1 | A | Make an effort to achieve or complete something, verb/noun |
| 3 | 1 | E | Ability to sense and share the feelings of another |
| 4 | 1 | E | Containing nothing, adj.; or remove all contents, verb |
| 5 | 1 | E | Cuspid; canine (fang) below your peeper; (I’d give my…for) |
| 6 | 1 | H | Wedge-shaped carpal bone |
| 7 | 1 | H | Dislike intensely, verb/noun |
| 8 | 1 | H | Archaic 3rd person singular present form of "possess" (Hell…no fury) |
| 9 | 1 | H | Yoga type that pairs poses with breathing |
| 10 | 1 | H | Warm up in the oven, verb; or extreme warmth, noun |
| 11 | 1 | H | Candy bar with toffee & milk chocolate, actor Ledger, or British field |
| 12 | 1 | M | Indian honorific (…Gahdhi), or rice brand |
| 13 | 2 | M | Fellow member (cast-…) or joint occupant (room-…) |
| 14 | 1 | M | Addition & division subject abbr. |
| 15 | 1 | M | Dull finish on paint or photos |
| 16 | 2 | M | Animal flesh for consumption (beef, ham, etc.) |
| 17 | 1 | M | Encounter (I’m supposed to…him in the park) |
| 18 | 1 | M | Beyond prefix, greek |
| 19 | 1 | M | Dispense justice (“…out punishment”), homophone of “animal flesh for consumption” |
| 20 | 1 | M | Slang abbr. of addictive stimulant (crystal…) |
| 21 | 1 | M | Widely held but false belief; origin story, folklore |
| 22 | 1 | P | Chopped liver (…de foie gras) or other spréâd (French), or archaic for a person’s head |
| 23 | 1 | P | Walking or bike trail |
| 24 | 1 | P | Peppermint candy (& friend of Marcie in “Peanuts”) or burger form |
| 25 | 2 | P | Fuel from bog soil, NOT Secretary Buttigieg |
| 26 | 1 | P | Trivial (…crime) (think late “Heartbreakers” singer Tom) |
| 27 | 1 | P | “Excellent” in hip-hop slang, NOT obese |
| 28 | 1 | T | Not wild, adj./verb |
| 29 | 1 | T | Pack down (start of Florida city on a bay) |
| 30 | 1 | T | Spanish bar snack (usually plural) |
| 31 | 1 | T | Adhesive strip |
| 32 | 1 | T | Worn & shabby, or of poor quality; Scottish |
| 33 | 1 | T | Group of sports players (Yankees, e.g.), noun; ... up, verb |
| 34 | 1 | T | A fellow player in the same group, compound |
| 35 | 1 | T | Nipple |
| 36 | 1 | T | Be full or swarming with; homophone of Yankees group |
| 37 | 2 | T | Native Am conical hut |
| 38 | 1 | T | What you use to chew, plural |
| 39 | 1 | T | When the things you use to chew start to emerge & you chew on everything |
| 40 | 1 | T | Office worker fill-in, slang abbr. |
| 41 | 1 | T | Indonesian dish made by deep-frying fermented soybeans |
| 42 | 1 | T | Entice (as a donut to a dieter, e.g.), verb |
| 43 | 1 | T | Pronoun for the other thing (this &…) |
| 44 | 1 | T | Archaic form of “you” |
| 45 | 1 | T | Pronoun for people you previously mentioned (I bathed the kids & put … to bed) |
| 46 | 1 | T | Subject of a talk, or an idea that recurs in a work of art |
| 47 | 1 | T | 8th Greek letter, Θ |
| 48 | 1 | T | Plural non-gendered pronoun (… were delicious candies) |
| 49 | 1 | T | Low-growing aromatic plant of the mint family (Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and …) |
| 50 | 1 | T | What you do on a keyboard |
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.