- Letters: A/FLMORU
- Words: 51
- Points: 188
- 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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| answers covered | answer's first two letters | answer's length | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AF | 4 | Jackson 5 hairstyle |
| 1 | AF | 4 | Distant |
| 1 | AF | 5 | Pollute, verb; or make an out of bounds or illegal sports play, verb/noun/adj. (he …ed it off/the referree called a …/he hit a … ball) |
| 1 | AL | 5 | Warning (bell) |
| 1 | AL | 7 | Grass for hay, or Little Rascal |
| 1 | AL | 5 | Cool & distant in behavior, adj.; anagram of bath sponge |
| 1 | AL | 4 | Graduate, noun, Latin abbr. |
| 1 | AM | 4 | A supply of bullets, slang abbreviation |
| 1 | AM | 5 | Love in French, noun |
| 1 | AM | 6 | Principled, ethical, adjective; or the lesson of a story, noun |
| 1 | AR | 6 | What connects your hand to your shoulder, noun; or give weapons to someone, verb/noun |
| 1 | AR | 5 | Protective covering against weapons (suit of …) |
| 1 | AR | 5 | Pleasant smell (baking bread, e.g.) |
| 1 | AR | 4 | Plant genus with → shaped leaves, often called … lilies |
| 1 | AU | 4 | Supernatural glow encircling a person |
| 1 | AU | 5 | Hearing-related adj. |
| 2 | AU | 6,7 | Polar lights (… Borealis) |
| 1 | FA | 4 | Autumn, noun; or plummet, verb |
| 1 | FA | 7 | Statistical decrease, or result of slipping while on a ladder; compound |
| 1 | FA | 4 | Place for growing crops |
| 1 | FA | 5 | Ancient grain used in salad & soup, not King Tut |
| 1 | FL | 5 | Plants of a particular region (… & fauna) |
| 1 | FL | 6 | Involving flowers |
| 1 | FO | 4 | Baby horse or other equine, noun/verb |
| 1 | FO | 4 | Mattress material, or beer froth |
| 1 | FO | 6 | Not casual (… occasion, … wear), adj. |
| 1 | FO | 7 | Math or science expression (NaCl for salt), or breast milk substitute, pangram noun |
| 1 | FO | 4 | Meeting place (Roman …, online discussion …) |
| 1 | LA | 4 | Tibetan Buddhist monk (Dalai …) |
| 1 | LL | 5 | S Am camel |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Unit of bread, noun; or idle (… around), verb |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Fertile, sandy soil |
| 1 | LO | 5 | Bath sponge |
| 1 | LU | 4 | Hawaiian BBQ |
| 1 | MA | 4 | Shopping center with many stores under one roof |
| 2 | MA | 4,5 | ♀ parent, slang |
| 1 | MA | 6 | Vertebrate class that has hair, milk, & live birth |
| 1 | MA | 4 | Old-timey schoolteacher honorific |
| 1 | MA | 4 | Wound by tearing & scratching, or Star Wars Sith Lord (Darth...) |
| 1 | MO | 5 | ♀ parent, slang |
| 1 | MO | 5 | Grinding back tooth |
| 1 | MO | 5 | $, slang (from Fiji) |
| 1 | MO | 5 | Principled, ethical, adjective; or the lesson of a story, noun |
| 1 | MU | 5 | Work of art painted directly on a wall |
| 1 | OF | 5 | Entrails & organs used as food |
| 1 | OR | 4 | Spoken (… exam), or by mouth (… surgery), adjective |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Wander, or use your phone on another network |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Lion “shout” |
| 1 | RU | 5 | Countryside adj.; opposite of urban |
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