- Letters: C/AEFILM
- Words: 45
- Points: 178
- Pangrams: 1
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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 |
| root # | answers covered | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | African or Australian wattle tree |
| 2 | 1 | Trendy smoothie berry |
| 3 | 1 | Enthusiastic public praise |
| 4 | 1 | Peak; or where Wile E. Coyote orders his supplies |
| 5 | 1 | Small réstaurant selling food & drinks (Intérnét, outdoor …) |
| 6 | 1 | Baby cow |
| 7 | 1 | Phone, name, summon, or shout (out) |
| 8 | 1 | Arum plant referred to as a lily |
| 9 | 1 | Tranquil (mood, wind, “the … before the storm”) |
| 10 | 1 | Humped desert animal |
| 11 | 1 | Flowering Asian shrubs or trees; primary tea source |
| 12 | 1 | ♀ sleeveless undergarment top, slang abbr. |
| 13 | 1 | Gluten intolerance disease |
| 14 | 1 | Prison “room,” or smallest unit of an organism |
| 15 | 1 | Yo-Yo Ma’s instrument (also Pablo Casals') |
| 16 | 1 | Short microscopic hairlike vibrating structure found in large numbers on the surface of certain cells; (anatomy) eyelash |
| 17 | 1 | Assert, an assertion, or a request (… asylum, baggage …) |
| 18 | 1 | bivalve shellfish (happy as a …) |
| 19 | 1 | Music symbol indicating key (e.g., treble, 🎼); French for “key” |
| 20 | 1 | Steep rock face (white ones of Dover) |
| 21 | 1 | Literary term for a region with ref. to prevailing weather (sunny …, e.g.), NOT scale a ladder |
| 22 | 1 | Travel toward a particular place, tell your dog to move toward you, or slang for “to orgasm” |
| 23 | 1 | Make oneself appear insignificant, or remove a mark from an exterior |
| 24 | 1 | Master of Ceremonies (sounded-out initials), slang noun/verb |
| 25 | 2 | Front part of head containing eyes, nose, & mouth 😀; noun/verb |
| 26 | 1 | Easy (… victory), or simplistic (… argument), adj.; French for “easy” |
| 27 | 1 | Remains of undigested food; excrement |
| 28 | 1 | Wool from sheep, or fabric (jacket), noun; or overcharge, slang verb |
| 29 | 1 | What happens when glaciers flow over a steep drop; compound noun (frozen water + plummet) |
| 30 | 1 | Frozen water spear formed from drips |
| 31 | 1 | Hip bone |
| 32 | 1 | Frilly fabric, or shoestring |
| 33 | 2 | Non-clerical |
| 34 | 1 | Itchy hair parasites |
| 35 | 1 | Purple flower or shade |
| 36 | 1 | Self-defense pepper spray, staff, or spice from a nutmeg |
| 37 | 1 | Causing or capable of causing harm or destruction, esp. by supernatural means; perfect pangram literary adj.; think Disney “Snow White” step-mom movie with Angelina Jolie (omit last 3 letters of that title) |
| 38 | 1 | Sour-tasting acid, or apple adj. (from Latin) |
| 39 | 1 | Desire to do evil (Paul Newman “Absence of …” film) |
| 40 | 1 | Holiest city in Islam, or place of attraction (shopping …) |
| 41 | 1 | Flaky rock that breaks off in sheets |
| 42 | 1 | 3 blind rodents in rhyme |
| 43 | 1 | Parrot someone’s speaking & mannerisms, verb; or the person doing it, 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