Bee Roots for 2025-07-05

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
  • Letters: R/AGILNY
  • Words: 69
  • Points: 367
  • Pangrams: 3
Source: Amazon.com

Table content

  • with first two letters of answer and length
answers coveredanswer's first two lettersanswer's lengthclue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...)
1AG4Seaweed gel used as food thickener & bacteria culture medium
1AG8Relating to cultivation of land (an … society)
3AI4,6,6What you breathe
2AN5,7Feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility, noun/verb, adv. form is a pangram
1AR4Opera solo
1AR4Seed covering
2AR7,10Call someone into court to answer an indictment
1AR9Organize something
2AR5,8Ordered series, esp. math
1GA8Building for parking cars
1GA8Agitate a liquid in your mouth with air from your lungs
2GI4,5Young ♀
2GL7,9Shine with a strong light, verb/noun; or (figuratively) stare fiercely at someone, verb/noun, adverb made from the gerund form is a pangram
3GN5,6,8Twist into a state of deformity, verb; or a hard, twisted protruberance on a tree
1GR5Cup that the Round Table knights tried to find (The Holy …)
3GR5,6,8Cereal crop used as food, wheat for example; pattern of fibers in wood, paper or fabric
1GR4Parent’s mom, slang abbr.
1GR7Storage for threshed cereals
1GR6Your parent's mother (familiar)
2GR4,7Black & while shade (50 of them?)
2GR5,8BBQ cooker; or interrogate, slang
3GR4,8,10Smile broadly, verb/noun
2IN7,10Firmly establish a habit or belief in someone
1LA4Animal or criminal den
1LI4Someone who doesn’t tell the truth
1LI4₺ or ₤, Turkish or old Italian $
1NA4Dialectic negation (I survived with … a scratch)
1NI6Sushi consisting of a small ball of rice smeared with wasabi sauce and topped with raw fish or other seafood
1RA7An old piece of cloth used for cleaning, noun; or criticize or make fun of someone, verb
1RA4Indian ♫ pattern used as basis for improv, starts with old cloth
1RA6Extreme, violent, or uncontrolled anger, noun/verb
1RA6Sleeve that extends to the neckline without a shoulder seam
2RA4,7What a train travels on, or what you hold on stairs
3RA4,5,7Liquid precipitation
2RA5,8Mass meeting of people for a common cause (pep, political), noun/verb, gerund form is a pangram
1RA7Area between a lower and upper limit, noun/verb; or a series of mountains, noun; or an area for grazing, noun (Home, home on the …, where the deer and the antelope play)
1RA5Tall and slim with long, slender limbs, adj.
1RA4Hindu queen, anagram of liquid precipitation
1RA6Full of enthusiasm (… to go)
1RA6Stream of light
1RA4Make a bell sound, verb/noun; encircle, verb/noun
1RI4$ in Iran, Oman, & Yemen
1RI7Make a boat ready for sailing by providing it with sails and rope (gerund form can also be a noun); or an apparatus for drilling or pumping oil
1RI6Make someone annoyed or irritated
1RI4Small stream
2RI4,7Make a bell sound, verb/noun; encircle, verb/noun
1RI5$ in Saudi Arabia
1YA4Knitting thread, or wild story

About this site

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