- Letters: M/ABILNO
- Words: 66
- Points: 282
- 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 | AB | 6 | (Of a plant) produce flowers |
| 1 | AM | 5 | Protein building block acid, or a NH₂ group, noun |
| 1 | AM | 4 | A supply of bullets, slang abbreviation |
| 1 | AM | 7 | Smelly cleaning fluid, NH₃ |
| 1 | AM | 5 | Slang abbr. for a prenatal test that takes fluid from a uterus with a needle, noun |
| 1 | AN | 5 | Jungian term for inner ♀ part of ♂ |
| 1 | AN | 6 | Not a mineral or a veg |
| 1 | BA | 4 | Soothing ointment (lip …) |
| 1 | BA | 6 | Panda’s primary food |
| 1 | BI | 11 | Compulsive preoccupation with possessing books, pangram |
| 1 | BI | 8 | Mathematical expression with two terms, pangram |
| 1 | BL | 4 | Exclamation used to represent a loud sharp sound, as of a gunshot or explosion |
| 1 | BL | 5 | (Of a plant) produce flowers |
| 1 | BO | 4 | It explodes, noun/verb |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Sound of explosion or subwoofer |
| 2 | IA | 4,5 | Poetic metrical foot (…ic pentameter) |
| 1 | IM | 4 | Prayer leader at mosque |
| 1 | LA | 4 | Tibetan Buddhist monk (Dalai …) |
| 1 | LA | 4 | A young sheep; Mary had a little one |
| 1 | LA | 6 | Thin layer of rock, tissue, or other material (think of coating an ID in plastic, without the –TE) |
| 1 | LA | 7 | Phonetic term for consonant formed with tip of tongue just behind teeth (add a consonant to above) |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Peru capital, or bean |
| 1 | LI | 4 | General term for an arm or leg, or large tree branch (go out on a…) |
| 1 | LI | 5 | Uncertain waiting period (in …), a place for a soul not in either Heaven or Hell, or a dance where you bend backwards to pass under a bar |
| 1 | LI | 7 | Occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold |
| 1 | LI | 4 | (Literary verb) represent by image or words, or outline or highlight |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Chauffeured, stretched car, slang abbr. |
| 1 | LL | 5 | S Am camel |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Fertile, sandy soil |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Cloth weaving device |
| 1 | MA | 4 | Letters you get or send |
| 1 | MA | 7 | ♂ letter carrier, compound |
| 1 | MA | 4 | Permanently injure |
| 1 | MA | 4 | Primary (Street), adj. |
| 1 | MA | 4 | Shopping center with many stores under one roof |
| 2 | MA | 4,5 | ♀ parent, slang |
| 1 | MA | 5 | Venomous African green or black snake |
| 1 | MA | 5 | Cuban dance, NOT an African snake |
| 2 | MA | 6,9 | Vertebrate class that has hair, milk, & live birth |
| 1 | MA | 6 | Wealth that’s an evil influence, per the New Testament & Milton |
| 1 | MA | 5 | Craze, noun (Beatle-…), two adv. forms are pangrams |
| 1 | MA | 6 | Capital of the Philippines, or brown paper |
| 1 | MA | 5 | Exodus food from the sky |
| 1 | MI | 4 | Wheat or pepper grinder |
| 1 | MI | 7 | 1 followed by 6 zeroes, ordinal form is a pangram |
| 1 | MI | 4 | Smaller version (as in Cooper car), slang abbr. |
| 1 | MI | 5 | 1/60 dram, UK music ½ note, or calligraphy short vertical stroke |
| 2 | MI | 6,7 | Smallest amount (the … bet at this table is $100), suffixed form that means the process of finding this or reducing to this is a pangram |
| 1 | MI | 6 | Underling, as seen in “Despicable Me” |
| 1 | MO | 5 | ♀ parent, slang |
| 1 | MO | 9 | Craze, noun (Beatle-…), two adv. forms are pangrams |
| 1 | MO | 4 | Sound of pain or sexual pleasure (Harry Potter’s ghost “…ing Myrtle”) |
| 1 | MO | 4 | To work hard (archaic); homophone of bris snipper |
| 1 | MO | 4 | Mobster’s ♀ |
| 1 | MO | 4 | 1–channel sound abbreviation, or glandular fever “kissing disease” abbreviation |
| 1 | MO | 7 | Single-person racing sled, NOT luge or skeleton |
| 1 | MO | 8 | In math, polynomial with only one term |
| 1 | MO | 5 | $, slang (from Fiji) |
| 1 | MO | 4 | NASA Apollo missions landed on or circled it |
| 1 | NI | 5 | Large gray rain cloud |
| 1 | NO | 7 | Existing in name only; or a price far below the real value or cost (… fee) |
| 1 | OI | 6 | ♂ who works in the petroleum industry |
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