- Letters: C/AEFILT
- Words: 64
- Points: 333
- 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 | AC | 6 | African or Australian wattle tree |
| 1 | AC | 4 | Trendy smoothie berry |
| 3 | AC | 6,6,7 | Vinegar adj., or acid it contains |
| 1 | AF | 6 | Influence or cause an action, move deeply, or pretend |
| 1 | AF | 7 | Cause pain or suffering; or trouble, verb |
| 1 | AT | 5 | Unfinished room below roof; garret |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Succulent plant with a thick stem that usually has spines, lacks leaves, and occasionally has brilliantly colored flowers |
| 1 | CA | 4 | Small réstaurant selling food & drinks (Intérnét, outdoor…) |
| 1 | CA | 7 | Mineral that’s the principal component of marble; similar to milk nutrient mineral |
| 1 | CA | 4 | Baby cow |
| 1 | CA | 4 | Phone, name, summon, or shout (out) |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Arum plant referred to as a lily |
| 1 | CA | 7 | Feline ♂ whistle; or jeer at passing ♀, compound |
| 1 | CA | 7 | Domestic feline hind appendage; or a tall, reedlike marsh plant with a dark brown, velvety cylindrical head of numerous tiny flowers, compound |
| 1 | CA | 6 | Cows & bulls (… prod) |
| 1 | CE | 6 | Gluten intolerance disease |
| 1 | CE | 4 | Prison “room,” or smallest unit of an organism |
| 1 | CE | 5 | Yo-Yo Ma’s instrument (also Pablo Casals') |
| 1 | CI | 5 | Short microscopic hairlike vibrating structure found in large numbers on the surface of certain cells; (anatomy) eyelash |
| 1 | CI | 4 | Quote as evidence |
| 1 | CL | 5 | Spike on sports shoes |
| 1 | CL | 4 | Music symbol indicating key (e.g., treble, 🎼); French for “key” |
| 1 | CL | 5 | Split (chin), adj. |
| 1 | CL | 5 | Steep rock face (white ones of Dover) |
| 1 | EC | 5 | Stylé, brilliancé, conspicuous succéss; Frénch for “splintér” or “sparklé” |
| 1 | EC | 8 | Wide-ranging tastes, styles, or ideas; adj. |
| 1 | EF | 6 | Make oneself appear insignificant, or remove a mark from an exterior |
| 1 | EF | 6 | Result of an action (cause & …), noun/verb, negated adjective form is a pangram |
| 2 | EL | 5,7 | Vote into office |
| 1 | EL | 6 | Draw out a response, verb |
| 2 | FA | 4,6 | Front part of head containing eyes, nose, & mouth 😀; noun/verb |
| 1 | FA | 8 | Cosmetic surgery to remove wrinkles by tightening skin, compound pangram |
| 1 | FA | 5 | 1 side of a cut gem |
| 1 | FA | 6 | Easy (… victory), or simplistic (… argument), adj.; French for “easy” |
| 1 | FA | 10 | Make something easier, pangram |
| 1 | FA | 4 | Thing that is known (for a …) |
| 1 | FE | 5 | Remains of undigested food; excrement |
| 1 | FL | 6 | Wool from sheep, or fabric (jacket), noun; or overcharge, slang verb |
| 1 | IC | 7 | What happens when glaciers flow over a steep drop; compound noun (frozen water + plummet) |
| 1 | IC | 6 | Frozen water spear formed from drips |
| 1 | IL | 5 | Hip bone |
| 1 | IL | 7 | Not forbidden by law or custom |
| 1 | IT | 6 | 𝑆𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑅𝑜𝑚𝑒’𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦, to make it so is a pangram |
| 1 | LA | 4 | Frilly fabric, or shoestring |
| 1 | LA | 7 | Produce milk, verb (breastfeed a baby) |
| 1 | LA | 7 | Capillary that absorbs fat in the small intestine |
| 1 | LA | 6 | Milk adj. (think acid in yogurt or sore muscles) |
| 2 | LA | 4,6 | Non-clerical |
| 1 | LA | 7 | Structure such as a pie top crust with strips of dough, e.g. |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Itchy hair parasites |
| 1 | LI | 5 | Not forbidden by law or custom |
| 1 | LI | 5 | Purple flower or shade |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Musical direction meaning “silent” |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Understood without being stated (… agreement), adj. |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Diplomacy, sensitivity |
| 2 | TA | 6,8 | Action planned to achieve a specific end (negotiating …) |
| 1 | TA | 7 | Perceptible by touch, adj. |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Mineral in baby powder |
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