- Letters: N/ADMORT
- Words: 57
- Points: 274
- 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. And if AI tries to be too helpful, try prefixing your search with "word for" or "word meaning".
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 | AD | 7 | Stage name of “Goody Two Shoes” singer; or refusing to change your mind, adj. (adverb form is a pangram) |
| 1 | AD | 5 | ♂ who writes sales pitches, compound |
| 1 | AD | 5 | Decorate (… with) (Xmas tree, e.g.) |
| 1 | AN | 7 | Orange-red dye obtained from the pulp of a tropical fruit, used for coloring foods and fabric; also used as a condiment; or the tree it comes from (Bixa orellana) |
| 1 | AN | 4 | Soon, poetically |
| 1 | AN | 9 | Write something, for example music, in a specialized system; or write comments in the margins of a book |
| 1 | AR | 6 | Complete & utter (nonsense), archaic adj. |
| 1 | DA | 4 | Condemn to Hell, verb; or exclamation of frustration (the state of being condemned to Hell is a pangram) |
| 1 | DA | 4 | Mild exclamation; or mend holes in socks, verb |
| 1 | DO | 5 | Someone who gives (blood, organs, $) |
| 1 | DO | 7 | ♂ who works at above (Carlton in Rhoda’s building), opening it for guests, & checking IDs at bars, compound |
| 1 | DO | 7 | Temporarily inactive, from Latin “to sleep”, pangram adj. |
| 1 | MA | 6 | Crazy ♂, compound (if plural, Don Draper’s retro TV show) |
| 1 | MA | 6 | Wealth that’s an evil influence, per the New Testament & Milton |
| 1 | MA | 5 | Exodus food from the sky |
| 1 | MA | 5 | Large country house with lands (Batman’s “Stately Wayne …”), medieval land ownership system with this root word is a pangram |
| 1 | MA | 5 | Ray (fish) |
| 1 | MA | 6 | Repeated yoga word, or slogan |
| 1 | MA | 6 | Dark red (Adam Levine’s “… 5” band), noun; or strand on an island, verb |
| 1 | MA | 6 | A married woman usually marked by dignified maturity or social distinction; or a woman in charge of domestic and medical arrangements at a boarding school |
| 1 | MO | 4 | Sound of pain or sexual pleasure (Harry Potter’s ghost “…ing Myrtle”) |
| 1 | MO | 5 | Soul-like thing in Leibniz' metaphysics; or math (category theory)/computer functional programming term for a single entity (think 1st name of Leonardo’s smiling Lisa + 1st letter of his last name) |
| 1 | MO | 5 | Slang for something huge or remarkable, or Italian for “world” (The Ramones' … Bizarro) |
| 1 | MO | 4 | 1–channel sound abbreviation, or glandular fever “kissing disease” abbreviation |
| 1 | MO | 9 | Compound term for a 1–person serious play or opera |
| 1 | MO | 4 | NASA Apollo missions landed on or circled it |
| 1 | MO | 7 | Caustic or biting, pangram adj. (she has a … sense of humor), from French “biting” |
| 1 | MO | 4 | Poetic start of day, NOT lament the dead; + period before midday |
| 1 | MO | 5 | Idiot |
| 1 | NA | 4 | Indiaan flaat breaad |
| 1 | NA | 4 | Nothing, Spanish |
| 1 | NA | 4 | Grandma, slang; or Peter Pan dog |
| 1 | NA | 8 | Provide a spoken commentary |
| 1 | NA | 6 | Swimming or floating adj. from Latin |
| 1 | NO | 5 | Wanderer; or member of a people without a permanent home, who travel to find food, livestock pastures, or work, adj. form is a pangram |
| 1 | NO | 6 | French opposite of “oui,” + “painting & sculpture”; compound |
| 1 | NO | 4 | 12:00, midday, 🕛 |
| 1 | NO | 4 | Standard (noun), or former SNL Weekend Update comic Macdonald |
| 1 | NO | 7 | Write something, for example music, in a specialized system; or write comments in the margins of a book |
| 1 | NO | 9 | Determined by chance, adj. (coin toss, e.g.) |
| 1 | ON | 4 | Preposition when mounting an animal or boarding a large vehicle |
| 1 | OT | 7 | Turkish Empire; or low, upholstered seat or footstool without a back or arms |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Harmful gas that seeps into homes; atomic no. 86 |
| 1 | RA | 4 | Kirk’s Yeoman Janice on Star Trek, or South African $ |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Slang for odd or suspicious person (short for chosen by chance) |
| 1 | RA | 6 | Determined by chance, adj. (coin toss, e.g.) |
| 1 | RA | 4 | Speak or shout wildly & at length |
| 1 | RA | 6 | Palm fiber for furniture |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Horse with 2–colored coat |
| 1 | RO | 5 | Musical form with recurring theme, often final movement of a piece, from Italian |
| 1 | TA | 7 | Clay oven used in & near India; add –I suffix for food from it |
| 1 | TA | 7 | Onomatopoetic name for war trumpet |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Hindu/Buddhist mystical text, involving sex |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Plaid patterned Scottish cloth |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Animated film or character, slang abbr. (car…) |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Ripped, adj. or past participle |
| 1 | TO | 7 | Cyclone that took Dorothy to Oz |
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 social media.
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