- Letters: E/AHLPVU
- Words: 45
- Points: 155
- Pangrams: 1
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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.
The Halloween, 2021 redesign improved the usability, I hope.
Past clues are available here |
Today's puzzle
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Table content
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| root # | answers covered | answer's first two letters | answer's length | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | AL | 5 | 1st Hebrew letter, א |
| 2 | 1 | AL | 6 | (Bio term) 1 of 2 or more versions of a gene |
| 4 | 1 | AP | 5 | 1 of these fruits a day keeps the doctor away |
| 3 | 1 | AP | 6 | Ask for a court ruling to be reversed, verb/noun |
| 3 | 1 | AP | 8 | Ask for a court ruling to be reversed, verb/noun |
| 5 | 1 | EA | 4 | Roof overhang, NOT Adam’s mate |
| 6 | 1 | EP | 4 | Fencing sword |
| 7 | 1 | HA | 4 | Strong, well, fit (… & hearty); or Revolutionary War patriot Nathan |
| 9 | 1 | HA | 4 | Possess, or experience (“… a good time!”), verb |
| 8 | 1 | HA | 5 | Divide into 2 equal parts (½ as a verb) |
| 10 | 1 | HE | 4 | Recover from injury |
| 11 | 1 | HE | 4 | Stack in a disorderly pile, verb/noun |
| 13 | 1 | HE | 4 | Back of your foot (Achilles’ weakness), noun; or (of a dog) follow closely |
| 14 | 1 | HE | 4 | Satan’s domain |
| 16 | 1 | HE | 4 | Assist, verb; or assistance, noun (F1 key on a computer, often) |
| 12 | 1 | HE | 5 | Lift or raise a thing with great effort (“… Ho!”) |
| 17 | 1 | HE | 5 | Obscure word for tool or weapon handle; start of “Swiss” font name |
| 15 | 1 | HE | 7 | Slang spelling of 3–word phrase (the middle connecting word is spelled as it’s pronounced) meaning extremely (he’s a … good guy, it was a … party) |
| 19 | 1 | LA | 4 | Wash |
| 18 | 1 | LA | 5 | Jacket edge that’s folded back |
| 20 | 1 | LE | 4 | Forceful jump (of faith?), noun/verb |
| 21 | 1 | LE | 5 | Depart, verb |
| 22 | 1 | LE | 5 | River embankment to prevent flooding |
| 23 | 1 | LE | 5 | Flat, adj.; or straightening tool with bubble, noun |
| 25 | 1 | PA | 4 | White-faced, NOT a bucket |
| 26 | 1 | PA | 4 | Put asphalt on a road (… the way) |
| 24 | 1 | PA | 6 | Spanish rice, saffron, chicken, and seafood dish |
| 27 | 1 | PE | 4 | Repeated bell ringing or laughter |
| 28 | 1 | PE | 4 | Skin of a fruit, noun; or to remove it, verb |
| 29 | 1 | PE | 4 | Baby bird sound, Easter marshmallow, or a furtive look |
| 30 | 1 | PE | 5 | Annoy or irritate |
| 31 | 1 | PL | 4 | Urgent request (Mercy!), or court statement of guilt or innocence |
| 32 | 1 | PU | 4 | Literary for “whimper” (usually ends in –ING) |
| 33 | 1 | PU | 5 | Immature insect stage |
| 34 | 1 | UP | 7 | Suddenly lift something, especially part of the Earth's surface; compound: opposite of down + lift or raise with great effort (usually with -al suffix) |
| 34 | 1 | UP | 8 | Suddenly lift something, especially part of the Earth's surface; compound: opposite of down + lift or raise with great effort (usually with -al suffix) |
| 35 | 1 | UV | 4 | Pigmented eye layer beneath the white part |
| 36 | 1 | UV | 6 | It hangs above your throat at the back of your mouth |
| 37 | 1 | VA | 4 | Low area of land between mountains (… of Tears) |
| 40 | 1 | VA | 4 | Smoke an e-cig |
| 38 | 1 | VA | 5 | What something’s worth (retail … of a used car) |
| 39 | 1 | VA | 5 | Device that controls passage of fluid or air (shut-off …, heart …) |
| 41 | 1 | VE | 4 | Calf meat (… Parmesan) |
| 42 | 1 | VE | 4 | Vice president (informal) |
| 43 | 1 | VU | 6 | ♀ outer genitals |
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.