- Letters: B/ACKLOR
- Words: 48
- Points: 201
- 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 | AB | 5 | Surprised (taken …), adv. |
| 1 | AR | 5 | Tree garden; its “Day” is the last Friday in April in many places |
| 1 | BA | 4 | Rum sponge cake, or Ali & his 40 thieves |
| 1 | BA | 5 | Sweet braided Jewish bread, often with chocolate filling |
| 1 | BA | 4 | Part of body containing your spine |
| 1 | BA | 4 | Hesitate or be unwilling to accept an idea or undertaking; or illegal move by a pitcher in baseball |
| 1 | BA | 4 | Where Cinderella lost her slipper, noun; or squeeze or form into a spherical shape, verb |
| 1 | BA | 8 | Valve that automatically fills a tank after liquid has been drawn from it, compound |
| 1 | BA | 6 | African tree |
| 1 | BA | 4 | Sharp projection near end of fishhook or on top of wire fence; start of Streisand name |
| 1 | BA | 7 | Bartender's assistant, compound |
| 1 | BA | 8 | Mexican BBQ; origin of English word via Texas; starts with 1st 5 letters of “Jeannie” actress Eden name |
| 1 | BA | 4 | Dog vocalization, or tree skin |
| 1 | BA | 7 | Soldier’s lodging |
| 1 | BL | 4 | Reveal a secret by indiscreet talk |
| 1 | BL | 5 | Color that reflects no light; color of the 8-ball |
| 1 | BL | 9 | Exclude from membership, usually by secret ballot, compound |
| 1 | BL | 4 | Gelatinous mass, or 1950s alien horror film |
| 1 | BL | 4 | Group of like-minded voters |
| 1 | BL | 5 | large solid piece of hard material, especially rock, stone, or wood, typically with flat surfaces on each side, noun; or prevent from moving in a particular direction, verb |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Wild pig |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Taiwan sweet tea with gelatin pearls |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Dark German lager, or chicken sound |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Thrown weighted string weapon |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Cotton seed target for weevil |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Western string tie |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Breast, slang |
| 1 | BO | 6 | “Owie” you kiss & make better, mistake, or what 2 ghosts say |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Printed novel, noun; or reserve something, verb |
| 1 | BO | 8 | A framework, typically with rails or bars, for holding reading material, compound |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Lout, NOT wild pig |
| 1 | BR | 5 | Small stream, noun; or tolerate, verb |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Secret political faction |
| 1 | CA | 6 | Jewish mysticism; usually starts with K |
| 1 | CA | 8 | Invitation to return for a second audition, compound |
| 1 | CA | 4 | Bread starch avoided on many diets, slang abbr. |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Tree or shrub whose pods are often used to make a chocolate substitute |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Venomous snake with a hood |
| 1 | CO | 6 | The act of working with someone to produce or create something, abbrev |
| 1 | CO | 8 | Bound, printed recipes (e.g. Fanny Farmer’s), compound |
| 1 | CR | 4 | Crustacean with claws & eye stalks |
| 1 | KA | 5 | Meat on a skewer (shish …) |
| 1 | LA | 5 | Hard work (manual…), or UK political party of Tony Blair (they add a U) |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Wolf, Spanish |
| 1 | LO | 8 | A collection of photographs compiled to show off a model, photographer, style, stylist, or clothing line, compound |
| 1 | RO | 8 | Recorded phone message from an auto dialer, compound |
| 1 | RO | 8 | Reduction, noun; or undo a change (such as a price increase or database transaction) verb/noun, compound pangram |
| 1 | RO | 7 | Vehicle roof rod to protect against overturning, compound |
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