- Letters: E/ACHILM
- Words: 47
- Points: 165
- 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 | AC | 4 | Muscle, heart, tooth, or tummy dull pain |
| 1 | AC | 4 | Peak; or where Wile E. Coyote orders his supplies |
| 1 | AH | 4 | Throat-clearing, attention-getting sound |
| 1 | AL | 6 | (Bio term) 1 of 2 or more versions of a gene |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Hidden stockpile, or computer temp memory storage to speed access |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Humped desert animal |
| 1 | CA | 8 | Flowering Asian shrubs or trees; primary tea source |
| 1 | CA | 4 | Travel toward a particular place, tell your dog to move toward you, or slang for “to orgasm” |
| 1 | CE | 6 | Gluten intolerance disease |
| 1 | CE | 4 | Prison “room,” or smallest unit of an organism |
| 1 | CE | 5 | Yo-Yo Ma’s instrument (also Pablo Casals') |
| 1 | CH | 7 | Large cup or goblet, typically used for drinking wine |
| 1 | CH | 8 | Substance produced in a lab (“My … Romance” rock band), pangram noun |
| 1 | CH | 6 | Milky latex of the sapodilla tree, used to make chewing gum & start of a square gum brand name |
| 1 | CH | 5 | Percussion instrument or its sound (I find a tinkling wind … to be annoying), noun |
| 1 | CL | 6 | Phrasé that’s overused |
| 1 | CL | 5 | Literary term for a region with ref. to prevailing weather (sunny …, e.g.), NOT scale a ladder |
| 1 | EA | 4 | Every one, pronoun; or apiece, adv. |
| 1 | EM | 5 | Letter sent via the internet (with Outlook?), noun/verb |
| 1 | EM | 5 | Master of Ceremonies (sounded-out initials), slang noun/verb |
| 1 | HA | 4 | Strong, well, fit (… & hearty); or Revolutionary War patriot Nathan |
| 1 | HE | 4 | Recover from injury |
| 1 | HE | 4 | Back of your foot (Achilles’ weakness), noun; or (of a dog) follow closely |
| 1 | HE | 8 | Relating to or near the sun |
| 1 | HE | 7 | Spiral or corkscrew shape (DNA is a double …) |
| 1 | HE | 4 | Satan’s domain |
| 1 | HE | 4 | Ship steering wheel, steer a ship, or Medieval protective hat |
| 1 | HE | 4 | Iron-containing biological compound (in blood, e.g.) |
| 1 | IC | 6 | Frozen water spear formed from drips |
| 1 | LA | 4 | Frilly fabric, or shoestring |
| 1 | LA | 4 | Disabled or weak; esp. foot or leg, causing a limp |
| 1 | LE | 5 | Dissolve out by percolating liquid, verb; or “Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous” host Robin |
| 1 | LE | 4 | Womanizer, derogatory slang abbr., or former Polish president Wałęsa |
| 1 | LE | 5 | Bloodsucking worm, noun; habitually exploit or rely on, verb, gerund form is a pangram |
| 1 | LE | 5 | Math term for intermediate or helping theorem in a proof |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Itchy hair parasites |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Small green citrus fruit |
| 1 | MA | 4 | Self-defense pepper spray, staff, or spice from a nutmeg |
| 1 | MA | 4 | ♂, the sex that produces sperm |
| 1 | MA | 6 | Desire to do evil (Paul Newman “Absence of …” film) |
| 1 | ME | 4 | Breakfast, lunch, or dinner |
| 1 | ME | 5 | Holiest city in Islam, or place of attraction (shopping …) |
| 1 | ME | 5 | Confusing scuffle |
| 1 | ME | 4 | Viral internet funny image, noun/verb |
| 1 | MI | 4 | 3 blind rodents in rhyme |
| 1 | MI | 4 | 5,280 feet, or 1.6 km |
| 1 | MI | 4 | Silent performer |
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