- Letters: E/BILOPW
- Words: 43
- Points: 150
- 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. An exception:
since Sam won't allow S, when the root contains an S, the clue may be for a plural or suffixed form. "Mice" for example.
If a clue isn't self-explanatory, try googling it.
The TL;DR about the site comes after the table.
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, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1 | BE | 4 | Car horn sound, noun/verb |
| 3 | 1 | BE | 4 | It rings |
| 1 | 1 | BE | 5 | Fast jazz style (“Cowboy …” anime series) |
| 4 | 1 | BE | 5 | Southern pretty ♀ (Scarlett O'Hara, e.g.) |
| 6 | 1 | BE | 5 | Underneath (“Look out …!”) |
| 18 | 1 | BE | 5 | Be in a horizontal resting position, or say something false |
| 5 | 1 | BE | 6 | Make a roaring shout; singular of “I Dream of Jeannie” doc |
| 8 | 1 | BI | 4 | Liver secretion, or anger |
| 7 | 1 | BI | 5 | Holy book (starts with Genesis) |
| 10 | 1 | BL | 4 | What the wind does, or what you do to extinguish birthday candles |
| 9 | 1 | BL | 5 | Cover a profanity with a sound (… out) |
| 11 | 1 | BL | 8 | Weapon for shooting poison darts with breath; or tube for keeping a Scottish instrument full of air, compound pangram |
| 13 | 1 | BO | 5 | (Usually plural) intestine, or the deepest area of something |
| 12 | 1 | BO | 6 | Type of “head” doll that nods when moved |
| 14 | 1 | EL | 5 | Arm joint, or macaroni shape |
| 15 | 1 | EL | 5 | Run away to marry |
| 16 | 1 | EP | 4 | Fencing sword |
| 17 | 1 | LI | 5 | Printed slander, noun |
| 17 | 1 | LI | 7 | Printed slander, noun |
| 19 | 1 | LO | 4 | Brain section, or part of ear most commonly pierced |
| 20 | 1 | LO | 4 | Run like a wolf, with bounding strides |
| 21 | 1 | OB | 4 | Double reed orchestra-tuning instrument |
| 22 | 1 | OL | 4 | Margarine |
| 23 | 1 | OL | 5 | Skateboard jump, or Stan’s slapstick partner |
| 25 | 1 | PE | 4 | Skin of a fruit, noun; or to remove it, verb |
| 26 | 1 | PE | 4 | Baby bird sound, Easter marshmallow, or a furtive look |
| 27 | 1 | PE | 5 | Baseball league for kids around 8 years old (rhyming) |
| 24 | 1 | PE | 6 | Small rock (… Beach golf course near Monterey, CA) |
| 27 | 1 | PE | 6 | Baseball league for kids around 8 years old (rhyming) |
| 28 | 1 | PE | 6 | Humanity, or celeb mag with annual “sexiest man” |
| 29 | 1 | PI | 4 | Heap, stack (dirty laundry, raked leaves, etc.), noun/verb |
| 30 | 1 | PI | 4 | Copper or plastic tube that carries water, noun; or to move liquid in one, verb; decorate a cake with icing |
| 31 | 1 | PL | 4 | Commoner, slang insult, from Latin |
| 33 | 1 | PL | 4 | Ballét bénd |
| 32 | 1 | PL | 5 | Military academy cadet, slang |
| 34 | 1 | PO | 4 | What a firefighter slides down |
| 35 | 1 | PO | 4 | Francis, Pius, etc. (head of Roman Catholic Church) |
| 36 | 1 | WE | 4 | Cry quietly |
| 37 | 1 | WE | 4 | Hole in ground you draw water from |
| 36 | 1 | WE | 6 | Cry quietly |
| 38 | 1 | WI | 4 | Roadrunner foe …. E. Coyote, or “feminine …s” (subtle ruses) |
| 39 | 1 | WI | 4 | Clean or dry something by rubbing it with a cloth, a piece of paper, or a hand, verb; or a pre-moistened cleaning cloth, noun |
| 40 | 1 | WO | 6 | Teeter, as an uneven table |
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.