- Letters: C/AILNTU
- Words: 53
- Points: 290
- 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 |
| 1 | AC | 6 | Existing in fact comparative adj. (The estimate was higher than the … cost) |
| 1 | AN | 5 | Childish or playful tomfoolery, usually plural |
| 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 | 7 | Branch of mathematics pioneered by Newton and Leibniz; or concretion of minerals formed within the body, especially in the kidney or gallbladder |
| 1 | CA | 4 | Phone, name, summon, or shout (out) |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Arum plant referred to as a lily |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Artificial waterway (Erie, Suez, Panama …) |
| 1 | CA | 6 | Leggy French dance |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Tropical “lily” |
| 1 | CA | 7 | Thin tube inserted into a vein or body cavity to administer medicine, drain off fluid, or insert a surgical instrument |
| 1 | CA | 4 | Tilt, or “I am unable to do so” contraction; hypocritical and sanctimonious talk |
| 1 | CA | 7 | Medium-length narrative music for voice & instruments, from Italian for “sung” |
| 1 | CA | 7 | Mexican or Spanish bar, or the Mos Eisley bar on Tatooine in “Star Wars” |
| 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 | 4 | Fetus head covering membrane, or ♀ hat |
| 1 | CI | 5 | Short microscopic hairlike vibrating structure found in large numbers on the surface of certain cells; (anatomy) eyelash |
| 1 | CL | 4 | Group of related (Scottish) families |
| 3 | CL | 6,8,9 | Medical facility (health …) |
| 1 | CU | 4 | Remove unwanted from the herd |
| 2 | CU | 4,6 | Religious sect centered around a single person |
| 1 | IL | 5 | Hip bone |
| 1 | IL | 7 | Not forbidden by law or custom |
| 1 | IN | 6 | Recite a spell or a prayer; chant or intone, verb, usually occurs in its -ation noun form |
| 1 | IN | 6 | Not damaged or impaired in any way; complete (I left with my dignity …), adj. |
| 1 | IT | 6 | 𝑆𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑅𝑜𝑚𝑒’𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦, to make it so is a pangram |
| 1 | LA | 6 | Milk adj. (think acid in yogurt or sore muscles) |
| 1 | LA | 6 | Missing portion in a book or manuscript |
| 2 | LA | 4,6 | Non-clerical |
| 1 | LI | 5 | Not forbidden by law or custom |
| 1 | LI | 5 | Purple flower or shade |
| 1 | LU | 7 | Maniac (think moon adj. or …asylum), perfect pangram |
| 1 | NA | 8 | Maritime or sailing pangram adj. (A … mile is 1 minute of arc length on a great circle) |
| 1 | NI | 6 | Vitamin B3 |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Understood without being stated (… agreement), adj. |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Diplomacy, sensitivity |
| 3 | TA | 6,8,9 | Action planned to achieve a specific end (negotiating …) |
| 1 | TA | 7 | Perceptible by touch, adj. |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Mineral in baby powder |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Brown chemical in tea & wine used to preserve leather, noun |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Archaic for shade of color, seen now only in “–URE of iodine” |
| 1 | TI | 7 | Pre-Olympic god, largest Saturn moon, or industry bigwig |
| 1 | TU | 5 | Upper body garment in a uniform or in ancient Greece & Rome |
| 1 | UN | 5 | Divide into pieces with a knife or other sharp implement, verb/noun |
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