- Letters: I/DMNOTW
- Words: 35
- Points: 147
- 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 | DI | 6 | Not-too-smart person, compound |
| 1 | DI | 4 | Flintstones pet, or T. Rex family abbr. |
| 1 | DI | 4 | Archaic word whose only surviving use is “by [means] of” (hard work) |
| 1 | DI | 5 | “Same here” or “same as above” |
| 1 | DO | 8 | Sovereign authority over a country or people (Canada was a … from 1867 to 1951) |
| 1 | DO | 6 | Spotted game tile (“bones”) |
| 1 | DO | 8 | Scents & smoke travel in this direction, compound |
| 1 | ID | 5 | Slang phrase particular to a language (“raining cats & dogs”), noun |
| 1 | ID | 5 | Stupid person (village …) |
| 1 | IN | 4 | Enter (go … the room), preposition |
| 1 | MI | 4 | Computer music protocol, calf-length skirt, or noon in French |
| 1 | MI | 7 | Central part of a large city (in Manhattan, roughly between 34th and 59th) |
| 1 | MI | 4 | Intention (I changed my …), noun; or dislike (I don’t … a little rain) or heed (… your manners), verb |
| 1 | MI | 4 | Smaller version (as in Cooper car), slang abbr. |
| 1 | MI | 5 | 1/60 dram, UK music ½ note, or calligraphy short vertical stroke |
| 1 | MI | 6 | Underling, as seen in “Despicable Me” |
| 1 | MI | 6 | Small fish often used as bait |
| 1 | MI | 4 | Breath candy or its flavor or plant source, noun; or create coins, verb |
| 1 | MI | 4 | Catcher’s glove, or Sen. Romney |
| 1 | MO | 6 | Action by which things change position, or parliamentary proposal; noun |
| 1 | NI | 6 | Stupid person, compound rhyming insult |
| 1 | NO | 6 | Vague idea, or small sewing accessory |
| 1 | OM | 4 | Leave out, verb |
| 1 | ON | 5 | Veg that makes you cry when cut (for some, this is the "dreaded root veg") |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Lacking courage or confidence, adj. (… as a mouse) |
| 1 | TI | 4 | Shade of color, noun; or darken car windows, verb |
| 1 | TO | 6 | New Zealand small bird (Magnum, P.I star 1st name + breast, slang) |
| 1 | TW | 4 | Identical bro or sis |
| 1 | TW | 4 | Silly person (also, start of a social media platform name) |
| 1 | WI | 5 | ♀ whose spouse has died (black … spider) |
| 1 | WI | 4 | Natural movement of air, noun, or what you do to tighten the spring on a wristwatch |
| 1 | WI | 6 | Glass-paned wall opening you look through |
| 1 | WI | 6 | Separate chaff from grain, or narrow down to the best (… out) |
| 1 | WI | 4 | Someone who overuses fermented grape juice, slang |
| 1 | WO | 8 | Non-brass musical instruments you blow (oboe, bassoon, flute, etc.); 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