- Letters: P/ADILRY
- Words: 39
- Points: 195
- 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 | AI | 7 | Broadcasting time devoted to a particular song or performer |
| 1 | AP | 6 | Honey-producing beehive collection |
| 1 | AP | 6 | Horrify (his tasteless jokes … me) |
| 1 | AP | 5 | Submit your résumé (to a college or job), or be relevant (terms & conditions may …), one who does this is a pangram |
| 1 | DI | 5 | Foolish (literally, adj. for a guac or French onion sauce) |
| 2 | DR | 4,6 | Let liquid fall, as a leaky faucet or melting ice cream cone, verb/noun |
| 1 | LA | 8 | Gem cutting & polishing adj., pangram |
| 1 | LI | 5 | Body part with which you kiss |
| 1 | LI | 5 | Chemical term for a fatty acid |
| 1 | PA | 5 | Field where rice is grown |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Bucket, NOT white-faced |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Twosome (socks, aces, e.g.) |
| 1 | PA | 6 | Traditional Mexican shelter roofed with palm leaves or branches, esp. on a beach, noun |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Figurative dark cloud, or funeral "bearer" |
| 2 | PA | 6,8 | White-faced, feeble; sounds like covering for what Jack & Jill used to fetch water, adj. + adv. |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Arthropod antenna for touch & taste, or start of medical exam by touch term |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Father, slang |
| 2 | PA | 5,7 | Pontiff adj. |
| 1 | PA | 6 | Tropical fruit with black seeds |
| 1 | PA | 7 | Small rounded bump on body part such as tongue (from Latin) |
| 1 | PA | 5 | Slang term for father or grandfather |
| 1 | PA | 6 | Egyptian writing sheet made from plant fiber |
| 1 | PA | 6 | Turn winnings from a bet into a greater amount by gambling, verb/noun |
| 1 | PA | 5 | Ward off a weapon with a countermove, esp. in fencing |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Give $ in exchange for goods or services, verb/noun |
| 1 | PA | 6 | 24–hr. calendar unit when you receive salary, or peanut caramel candy bar; compound noun |
| 1 | PI | 6 | Urinate, slang (house training small dogs might require a … pad) |
| 1 | PI | 4 | Tablet of medicine |
| 1 | PI | 6 | Tall vertical structure that supports or decorates a building; or, figuratively, someone who reliably supports a group (… of the community) |
| 1 | PL | 5 | Tartan or lumberjack shirt pattern |
| 1 | PL | 4 | Staged drama, or what kids do at recess |
| 1 | PR | 4 | Appeal to God; what you do in a house of worship |
| 2 | RA | 5,7 | Swift, as in “transit,” adj., or river whitewater (plural), adv. form is a pangram |
| 1 | RI | 6 | Tiny wave that spreads out in a liquid, noun/verb; or ice cream with wavy lines of flavored syrup running through it (fudge …) |
| 1 | YA | 5 | Sharp, shrill bark; slang term for a person's mouth; Pacific island with giant coins |
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