- Letters: T/ABGHIN
- Words: 62
- Points: 355
- Pangrams: 2
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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 | 7 | Become less intense (the storm suddenly …d) |
| 1 | AG | 5 | Italian slang for heartburn from stress |
| 1 | AG | 9 | Make someone nervous, campaign for a cause, or stir briskly (clothes in a washing machine, e.g.), verb |
| 1 | AN | 9 | How old you are, noun; or grow older, verb; or period of history, noun |
| 1 | AN | 4 | Opposed to (prefix), NOT uncle’s wife nickname |
| 2 | AT | 6,9 | Succeed in getting, or reach; verb (… nirvana), noun form is a pangram |
| 1 | BA | 4 | Thai $ |
| 2 | BA | 4,7 | (Put a) worm on a fishing hook; verb/noun |
| 1 | BA | 7 | What you use to hit the ball in games such as baseball or cricket; flying mammal |
| 1 | BA | 6 | (Of a hawk) flap wings to escape, homophone of worm on a fish hook |
| 2 | BA | 4,7 | Shower alternative |
| 1 | BI | 5 | Curve in a coastline, or a loop of rope (… of Benin or Biafra), noun |
| 1 | BI | 6 | Use teeth to cut into food (take a … out of the apple) |
| 1 | GA | 4 | A person's way of walking, or an animal’s pace (esp. horse); NOT a hinged fence opening |
| 1 | GA | 6 | Hinged barrier, or airplane boarding area |
| 1 | GI | 5 | Enormous person (Jolly Green …, Andre the …) |
| 1 | GI | 7 | A billion of the smallest unit of data (my internet at home is slow, but at work we have a …) |
| 1 | GN | 4 | Tiny flying insect |
| 1 | HA | 5 | Nun’s garment, or tendency (chewing your nails is a bad …) |
| 1 | HA | 7 | Natural environment for animal or plant, Pres. Carter’s “… for Humanity” |
| 1 | HA | 6 | Dislike intensely, verb/noun |
| 1 | HA | 4 | Archaic 3rd person singular present form of "possess" (Hell … no fury) |
| 1 | HA | 5 | Yoga type that pairs poses with breathing |
| 2 | HI | 4,7 | Clue, suggestion, noun/verb |
| 1 | HI | 7 | Strike with a hand, tool, or weapon, verb/noun; popular song or movie |
| 1 | IG | 8 | Catch fire, or cause to do so |
| 3 | IN | 7,10,10 | Occupy or live in (Emperor penguins … cold climates) |
| 2 | IN | 7,10 | Hinder, restrain, or prevent (cold weather …s plant growth) |
| 1 | IN | 10 | Cause to begin, or admit into a secret society; verb; or novice, noun |
| 1 | NA | 6 | Swimming or floating adj. from Latin |
| 1 | NI | 5 | Opposite of day |
| 1 | NI | 5 | Number of justices on Supreme Court |
| 1 | TA | 7 | Mark with a projecting piece of material, verb/noun; or identify as suitable for a position, verb (Biden …ed Harris as his running mate) |
| 1 | TA | 7 | Identification label, noun/verb; or kids' game (…, you're it) |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Middle Eastern sesame seed paste or sauce |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Sometimes swampy coniferous forest of high northern latitudes |
| 2 | TA | 5,8 | Smear of corruption or pollution, noun/verb |
| 1 | TA | 7 | Yellowish-brown color |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Strong taste, flavor, or smell; astronaut orange juice |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Brown chemical in tea & wine used to preserve leather, noun |
| 1 | TA | 7 | Make lace |
| 1 | TH | 4 | Comparison word (bigger … a breadbox) |
| 1 | TH | 4 | Pronoun for the other thing (this & …) |
| 1 | TH | 5 | Part of leg between hip & knee |
| 2 | TH | 4,8 | Skinny, adj. (… Mints) |
| 1 | TH | 5 | Unnamed object, noun (person, place, or …) |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Shin bone |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Having no slack (all my pants became too … during the pandemic), adj. |
| 1 | TI | 7 | Color slightly (…ed with pink), verb/noun |
| 2 | TI | 4,7 | Shade of color, noun; or darken car windows, verb |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Pre-Olympic god, largest Saturn moon, or industry bigwig |
| 1 | TI | 7 | Give 10% of your income to the Church |
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