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 | Further forward in space or time; in the lead (sports) |
| 2 | 1 | A | Throat-clearing, attention-getting sound |
| 3 | 1 | A | Person proficient in sports |
| 4 | 2 | D | Remove spent flowers from a plant (compound) |
| 5 | 1 | D | Event that ends a life |
| 6 | 1 | H | Kosher in Islam |
| 7 | 1 | H | Strong, well, fit (…& hearty); or Revolutionary War patriot Nathan |
| 8 | 1 | H | Corridor, or Let’s Make a Deal’s Monty |
| 9 | 2 | H | Come to a complete & sudden stop, verb |
| 10 | 1 | H | Meat from a pig, often served on holidays |
| 11 | 1 | H | Wedge-shaped carpal bone |
| 12 | 1 | H | Smaller than a village |
| 13 | 1 | H | Head covering |
| 14 | 2 | H | Dislike intensely, verb/noun |
| 15 | 1 | H | Archaic 3rd person singular present form of "possess" (Hell … no fury) |
| 16 | 1 | H | Yoga type that pairs poses with breathing |
| 17 | 2 | H | Body part that holds your brain, eyes, ears, nose and mouth |
| 18 | 2 | H | Recover from injury |
| 19 | 1 | H | Physical well-being (in sickness & in …) |
| 20 | 2 | H | Warm up in the oven, verb; or extreme warmth, noun |
| 21 | 1 | H | Candy bar with toffee & milk chocolate, actor Ledger, or British field |
| 22 | 2 | H | Pay attention to (you didn’t … my advice) |
| 23 | 2 | H | Back of your foot (Achilles’ weakness), noun; or (of a dog) follow closely |
| 24 | 1 | H | Satan’s domain |
| 25 | 2 | H | Ship steering wheel, steer a ship, or Medieval protective hat |
| 26 | 2 | H | Hard thing you can wear to protect your noggin |
| 27 | 1 | H | Turn under and sew the edge of a garment, verb/noun |
| 28 | 1 | H | Iron-containing biological compound (in blood, e.g.) |
| 29 | 1 | H | Grasp in your hands, or wait “on…” (on a call with tech support, e.g.) |
| 30 | 1 | L | Flat strip of wood, often plastered as wallboard |
| 31 | 2 | L | Wood-shaping machine, noun/verb |
| 32 | 1 | L | Fatal (“… Weapon” films) |
| 33 | 1 | M | Indian honorific (… Gahdhi), or rice brand |
| 34 | 1 | M | Addition & division subject abbr. |
| 35 | 1 | M | Stupid person (compound, Archie Bunker's favorite name for his son-in-law) |
| 36 | 1 | M | Fan or performer of heavy rock-and-roll |
| 37 | 1 | M | Slang abbr. of addictive stimulant (crystal …) |
| 38 | 1 | T | What you use to chew, plural |
| 39 | 2 | T | When the things you use to chew start to emerge & you chew on everything |
| 40 | 1 | T | Medical care over the phone, contains list word |
| 41 | 1 | T | Pronoun for the other thing (this & …) |
| 42 | 1 | T | Archaic form of “you” |
| 43 | 1 | T | Pronoun for people you previously mentioned (I bathed the kids & put … to bed) |
| 44 | 2 | T | Subject of a talk, or an idea that recurs in a work of art |
| 45 | 1 | T | 8th Greek letter, Θ |
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.