- Letters: B/DENOTU
- Words: 57
- Points: 284
- Pangrams: 3
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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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| answers covered | answer's first two letters | answer's length | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BE | 6 | Furniture you sleep on, noun/verb |
| 1 | BE | 4 | Past participle of “to exist” (“How have you … doing?”) |
| 1 | BE | 4 | Borscht veg |
| 2 | BE | 4,4 | Shape into a curve, or Oregon city |
| 1 | BE | 5 | Japanese lunchbox |
| 1 | BO | 6 | Make a quick short movement up and down (… for apples); short haircut for women |
| 2 | BO | 4,5 | Be an omen of a particular outcome |
| 1 | BO | 6 | Candy, or 2X “good" in French |
| 2 | BO | 4,6 | Agent 007, Brit spy James |
| 2 | BO | 4,5 | Skeleton part, or what dogs chew & bury; study intensely |
| 1 | BO | 6 | Hat tied under chin, or Britspeak for car hood |
| 1 | BO | 6 | Small ape related to chimps |
| 1 | BO | 5 | Express disapproval at a game, verb; what ghosts say |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Breast, slang |
| 1 | BO | 6 | “Owie” you kiss & make better, mistake, or what 2 ghosts say |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Favor, poetic (grant me a …), noun |
| 2 | BO | 4,6 | Cowboy or winter shoe |
| 1 | BO | 6 | Baby foot covering |
| 1 | BO | 6 | String of connected hijacked computers that send spam & launch attacks |
| 2 | BO | 5,7 | Walk or run with leaping strides, verb/noun; or set limits, verb/noun |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Short period (… of insomnia or depression, e.g.), or wrestling or boxing match |
| 1 | BU | 6 | Part of a plant that will become a flower, noun/verb |
| 2 | BU | 4,6 | Tap a baseball instead of swinging |
| 2 | BU | 4,6 | Hit with head or horns (… heads with), verb; or slang abbr. for your rump, noun |
| 1 | BU | 5 | Isolated hill with steep sides & flat top |
| 2 | BU | 6,8 | Shirt fastener, or to fasten shirt, verb + pangram gerund |
| 2 | DE | 6,7 | Skeleton part, or what dogs chew & bury; study intensely |
| 1 | DE | 4 | Money you borrowed |
| 2 | DE | 5,7 | Appear for the first time, verb/noun, used especially for young socialites and Spelling Bee words |
| 2 | DO | 5,7 | Be uncertain, especially if you think something is probably not true, verb/noun (benefit of the …) |
| 1 | DU | 6 | Add sound, usually in a different language than the original, to video; or, give an informal name or nickname |
| 1 | EB | 5 | Recede, especially in reference to the tide |
| 1 | EB | 4 | Black, poetic; and/or black wood (“… & Ivory”) |
| 1 | NO | 4 | Beginner, gamer slang |
| 1 | OB | 4 | Double reed orchestra-tuning instrument |
| 1 | OU | 8 | Traveling away from a place, especially at the beginning of a round trip, compound adj./adv. |
| 2 | TU | 4,5 | A long, hollow cylinder (Londoners call their subway "The …"); or ride on an inner …, verb |
| 2 | UN | 6,6 | Shape into a curve, or Oregon city |
| 2 | UN | 7,9 | Walk or run with leaping strides, verb/noun; or set limits, verb/noun |
| 2 | UN | 8,10 | Shirt fastener, or to fasten shirt, verb + pangram gerund |
| 1 | UN | 9 | Be uncertain, especially if you think something is probably not true, verb/noun (benefit of the …) |
This site provides clues for a day's New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle. It follows in Kevin Davis' footsteps. The original set of 4,500 clues came from him, and they still make up about three quarters of the current clue set.
The "Bee Roots" approach is to provide explicit clues for root words, not every word. 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.
A few words can have one meaning as a suffixed form and another as a stand-alone word. EVENING, for example. In those cases I will use the meaning that I think is more common.
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