- Letters: I/BCDENO
- Words: 51
- Points: 268
- 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, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | BI | 4,5 | Remain or stay somewhere, archaic verb (you must go and I must …) |
| 1 | BI | 6 | Receptacle for storing a specified substance, noun/verb; trash can (British) |
| 1 | BI | 4 | Fasten tightly, verb; problematic situation, noun |
| 1 | BI | 5 | Decorative mark worn in the middle of the forehead |
| 1 | BI | 7 | Umbrella term for substances that kill living things |
| 1 | BI | 6 | Having artificial body parts, especially electromechanical ones (70's TV show The … Woman) |
| 1 | BO | 6 | Sewing machine thread holder |
| 1 | BO | 5 | Italian game similar to lawn bowling |
| 1 | BO | 6 | Article of clothing for women and girls, covering the torso from the neck to the waist |
| 1 | BO | 6 | Your physical structure, or car frame |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Spherical or nearly spherical bacterium |
| 1 | CO | 7 | Addictive pain-killer |
| 2 | CO | 4,6 | Metal $, noun; or come up with a new phrase, verb |
| 3 | CO | 8,9,11 | Occur at the same time (… with) |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Ice cream holder shape |
| 2 | DE | 6,7 | Make up one’s mind |
| 1 | DE | 7 | Killing of a god, noun |
| 1 | DE | 6 | Refuse to give, grant or admit |
| 2 | DE | 5,6 | Frozen water |
| 2 | DI | 4,5 | Spotted cubes you roll, noun; or chop into cubes, verb |
| 1 | DI | 4 | Cease to live |
| 2 | DI | 4,5 | Eat at a restaurant |
| 1 | DI | 4 | Flintstones pet, or T. Rex family abbr. |
| 1 | DI | 5 | 1–way semiconductor with 2 terminals |
| 1 | DO | 6 | Marijuana cigarette, slang |
| 1 | EC | 7 | “Killing” of the environment |
| 1 | ED | 6 | Water swirl, NOT clothier Bauer |
| 1 | IC | 4 | Frozen water |
| 2 | IC | 4,6 | Symbol (you tap on phone screen, e.g.), adverb form is a pangram |
| 1 | IN | 9 | Statistical frequency or occurrence of something bad (disease, crime, e.g.), noun |
| 1 | IN | 6 | Truly; used to emphasize & confirm previous statement (sometimes follows “yes”), compound |
| 1 | IN | 5 | Unaffiliated with a major studio, slang abbr. (film or music, e.g.) |
| 1 | IN | 5 | Concave belly button, slang |
| 1 | IN | 9 | Guiltless |
| 1 | IO | 6 | Compound made with element 53 |
| 1 | IO | 6 | Element 53, stored in thyroid, added to table salt, used to treat cuts |
| 1 | IO | 5 | Atom or molecule with a net electric charge |
| 1 | NI | 4 | Pleasant in manner; or city in SE France |
| 1 | NI | 5 | Your sibling’s daughter |
| 1 | NI | 4 | Number of justices on Supreme Court |
| 1 | OB | 9 | Compliant with orders |
| 1 | ON | 5 | Veg that makes you cry when cut (for some, this is the "dreaded root veg") |
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