- Letters: T/ABIORV
- Words: 53
- Points: 245
- 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 | AB | 5 | Head monk, perhaps at Downton |
| 1 | AB | 5 | Call off (a mission or takeoff, e.g.) |
| 1 | AI | 7 | Shallow-draft watercraft powered by an aircraft engine, for use in swamps, compound |
| 1 | AO | 5 | Main blood pipe from heart |
| 1 | AR | 10 | Reach an authoritative judgment or settlement, for example in a labor dispute |
| 1 | AT | 5 | Large open-air or skylight covered space surrounded by a building, common in ancient Roman houses; an upper cavity of the heart |
| 1 | AT | 5 | Flower oil for perfume |
| 1 | AV | 6 | Video game stand-in, or film set on Pandora |
| 1 | AV | 7 | Pilot or fly in a plane, verb (from Latin for bird) |
| 1 | BA | 4 | (Put a) worm on a fishing hook; verb/noun |
| 1 | BI | 5 | The animal and plant life of a particular region |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Small ship, as in “tug-” |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Cowboy or winter shoe |
| 1 | BR | 4 | Badly behaved child; or a type of sausage (…wurst) |
| 1 | IO | 4 | 9th Greek letter, I; or extremely small amount |
| 1 | OB | 4 | Death write-up in newspaper, slang abbr. |
| 1 | OR | 6 | Make a speech |
| 1 | OR | 8 | Religious music for orchestra & voice (Handel’s Messiah, e.g.) |
| 1 | OR | 5 | Path of a planet around the sun |
| 1 | RA | 6 | Gregarious, plant-eating mammal with long ears, long hind legs, and a short tail (famous ones include Bugs and Roger) |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Indian yogurt veg dip |
| 1 | RA | 7 | Machine gun sound |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Proportion in math (Golden …, e.g.) |
| 1 | RI | 6 | What a frog says (I'm not kidding - it's really a Spelling Bee word) |
| 1 | RI | 4 | Civil unrest, noun; or to rampage, verb |
| 1 | RO | 5 | Machine resembling a human |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Plant anchor that sucks up water |
| 1 | RO | 7 | Move in a circle around an axis or center |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Indian flatbread that isn’t naan |
| 1 | RO | 5 | Device or blade that spins |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Forbidden, cultural no-nos |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Small drum used to accompany a pipe or fife played by the same person |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Asian veg that sounds like fortunetelling cards |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Fortunetelling cards |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Open filled pastry, noun; or sharp taste, adj. |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Fish sauce, or tooth buildup |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Skin “ink” |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Jeweled, ornamental ½ crown |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Shin bone |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Short horn sound; noun/verb |
| 1 | TO | 5 | Shinto shrine gate, NOT double plural of donut shapes |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Bull, Spanish |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Legal wrong, NOT pastry |
| 1 | TO | 5 | Mexican sandwich |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Donut shape |
| 1 | TR | 5 | Characteristic, often genetically determined (left-handedness, e.g.) |
| 1 | TR | 7 | Benedict Arnold, e.g. |
| 1 | TR | 9 | Italian restaurant with simple food |
| 1 | TR | 4 | Musical group of 3 (Kingston …) |
| 1 | TR | 6 | Insignificant facts (there are often contests), noun + adj. |
| 1 | TR | 4 | Fast walking pace for horses or people |
| 1 | VI | 8 | Move rhythmically and steadily to and fro, oscillate, adj. form is a pangram |
| 1 | VI | 7 | Musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch, pangram |
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