- Letters: T/CHIKOP
- Words: 31
- Points: 138
- 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 | CH | 4 | IOU note, Navy memo |
| 1 | CO | 7 | Pilot area of a plane, compound |
| 1 | CO | 7 | Range that’s either part of an oven or built into a counter, compound |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Usually hyphenated verb: take for your own use or for another purpose |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Foolish old ♂, or water bird |
| 1 | HI | 5 | “Psycho” director Alfred nickname, or slang for thumb a ride, verb; or device on a vehicle that allows it to attach a trailer, noun |
| 1 | HO | 4 | Owl sound, noun/verb |
| 1 | HO | 6 | Asian dish similar to fondue; AKA steamboat, compound |
| 1 | IT | 4 | What you scratch (an …) |
| 1 | KI | 4 | Close friends, archaic (… & kin) |
| 1 | OC | 6 | Aquatic animal with eight arms |
| 1 | OP | 5 | Relating to the eye (… nerve), med. adj. |
| 1 | PH | 6 | Light-related, adj. (ocean “zone” lit by sun) |
| 1 | PH | 5 | Picture made using a camera: short form is more common in the Bee, long form is a pangram |
| 1 | PH | 8 | Medical adj. for vision under well-lit conditions (not compound, but looks like two words for camera picture pasted together) |
| 1 | PI | 5 | One of a series of small ornamental loops forming an edge on ribbon or lace |
| 1 | PI | 5 | Ground-dwelling bird that wags its tail & is named for its song |
| 1 | PI | 5 | Throw a baseball towards home plate; advocate for a business deal |
| 1 | PI | 4 | White layer under citrus fruit rind, or essence |
| 1 | PO | 7 | Implement to hang a cooking pa, compound |
| 1 | TH | 5 | Wide (slices of bread, e.g.), adj. (verb form is a pangram) |
| 1 | TI | 4 | Bloodsucking arachnid that transmits Lyme disease, or mechanical clock sound; noun/verb |
| 1 | TI | 8 | Compound word that is both parts of a mechanical clock sound |
| 1 | TI | 4 | Polynesian or Maori god, or Polynesian style (… bar or torch, Kon-… raft) |
| 1 | TI | 6 | Rhyming compound adj. that means “of the very best quality” (in … condition), compound |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Reach for and hold; remove (… away) |
| 1 | TO | 4 | 2nd half of a timepiece sound |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Short horn sound; noun/verb |
| 1 | TO | 5 | What you chew with |
| 1 | TO | 9 | Stick for spearing food or removing it from between your pearly whites, compound pangram |
| 1 | TO | 5 | Subject of a discussion (his ears must have been burning because he was the current … of conversation) |
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