- Letters: U/ABLMNT
- Words: 43
- Points: 158
- 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 | 4 | Be next to; share a common border |
| 1 | AL | 5 | Blank book where you can keep your pictures; collection of songs for sale (The White …) |
| 1 | AL | 4 | Graduate, noun, Latin abbr. |
| 1 | AL | 6 | Graduate, from Latin |
| 1 | AM | 8 | Able to walk around; not confined to bed, pangram |
| 1 | AN | 6 | Yearly, adj. |
| 1 | AN | 5 | Void a marriage |
| 1 | AU | 4 | Parent’s sister |
| 2 | AU | 6,8 | Fall (the season, not loose your balance) |
| 1 | BL | 5 | (Of a knife) not sharp, or (of talk) frank; adj. or hollowed-out cigar filled with pot, noun |
| 1 | BU | 5 | Southern good ole boy |
| 1 | BU | 4 | Light-producing globe, head of garlic, or what you plant to get a tulip |
| 1 | BU | 4 | ♂ cow |
| 1 | BU | 4 | Tap a baseball instead of swinging |
| 1 | BU | 4 | Hit with head or horns (… heads with), verb; or slang abbr. for your rump, noun |
| 1 | LU | 4 | Hawaiian BBQ |
| 1 | LU | 4 | Soothe (… into a false sense of security), verb; or a pause in activity, noun |
| 1 | LU | 4 | Doozy, or “To Sir With Love” singer |
| 1 | LU | 4 | Roman moon goddess, or nutrition bar brand |
| 1 | LU | 6 | ½–moon shaped fingertip base white area (Latin "little moon") |
| 1 | MA | 6 | Done by hand, adj. (… labor); or instruction book, noun |
| 1 | MA | 4 | Wound by tearing & scratching, or Star Wars Sith Lord (Darth …) |
| 1 | MU | 4 | Think over, heat cider or wine, verb; or actor Martin |
| 1 | MU | 6 | Undergo genetic change (viruses do it all the time) |
| 1 | MU | 4 | Mixed-breed dog, slang |
| 1 | MU | 6 | Held in common by two or more parties |
| 1 | MU | 6 | Loose, brightly-colored Hawaiian dress with a double name |
| 1 | NU | 4 | Having no legal or binding force; invalid |
| 1 | NU | 4 | Not able to feel |
| 1 | NU | 6 | Australian marsupial anteater with stripes |
| 1 | TA | 8 | Chemical element, atomic number 73 |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Provoke with words |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Not slack, as a rope, adj. |
| 1 | TU | 4 | Biggest brass instrument; Sousaphone |
| 1 | TU | 5 | Adj. relating to flexible pipes, esp. Fallopian ones (… ligation) |
| 1 | TU | 6 | Loud, confused crowd noise; or disorder; noun |
| 1 | TU | 4 | Chicken of the sea (Ahi …) |
| 1 | TU | 4 | Ballet skirt, or S Afr Bishop Desmond |
| 1 | UL | 4 | Forearm bone opposite radius |
| 1 | UM | 6 | Two dots over a letter in German |
| 1 | UN | 5 | Prohibit, verb |
| 1 | UN | 5 | Adult ♂ |
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