- Letters: P/ABELOW
- Words: 54
- Points: 201
- 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. 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 |
| root # | answers covered | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Horrify (his tasteless jokes … me) |
| 2 | 3 | Ask for a court ruling to be reversed, verb/noun |
| 3 | 1 | 1 of these fruits a day keeps the doctor away |
| 4 | 1 | Fast jazz style (“Cowboy …” anime series) |
| 5 | 1 | Car horn sound, noun/verb |
| 6 | 1 | Cover a profanity with a sound (… out) |
| 7 | 1 | Electronic tone similar to profanity cover sound; or mistake (usually with –ER); or a weakly hit fly ball in baseball that is too high for the infielders and too short for the outfielders |
| 8 | 1 | Low-pitched horn sound, noun/verb; or a gentle, playful strike, especially on the nose, noun/verb |
| 9 | 1 | Run away to marry |
| 10 | 1 | Fencing sword |
| 11 | 1 | Jacket edge that’s folded back |
| 12 | 1 | Forceful jump (of faith?), noun/verb |
| 13 | 1 | Move in an ungainly way in a series of clumsy paces or bounds |
| 14 | 1 | Closed curve |
| 15 | 1 | Run like a wolf, with bounding strides |
| 16 | 1 | Gemstone from Australia, October birthstone |
| 17 | 1 | Spanish rice, saffron, chicken, and seafood dish |
| 18 | 1 | Traditional Mexican shelter roofed with palm leaves or branches, esp. on a beach, noun |
| 19 | 1 | White-faced, NOT a bucket |
| 20 | 1 | Diet based on the types of foods presumed to have been eaten by early humans |
| 21 | 1 | Figurative dark cloud, or funeral "bearer" |
| 22 | 1 | Arthropod antenna for touch & taste, or start of medical exam by touch term |
| 23 | 1 | So intense (a feeling or atmosphere) as to seem almost physical (a … sense of loss), or can be felt by touch (negative form is a pangram) |
| 24 | 1 | Father, slang |
| 25 | 1 | Pontiff adj. |
| 26 | 1 | Mechanical component that engages with another component to prevent movement in one direction |
| 27 | 2 | Another name for papaya (2 spellings) |
| 28 | 1 | Repeated bell ringing or laughter |
| 29 | 1 | Small rock (… Beach golf course near Monterey, CA) |
| 30 | 2 | Skin of a fruit, noun; or to remove it, verb |
| 31 | 1 | Baby bird sound, Easter marshmallow, or a furtive look |
| 32 | 1 | Baseball league for kids around 8 years old (rhyming) |
| 33 | 1 | Humanity, or celeb mag with annual “sexiest man” |
| 34 | 1 | Small grayish- or greenish-brown bird that eats flying insects |
| 35 | 1 | Urgent request (Mercy!), or court statement of guilt or innocence |
| 36 | 1 | Commoner, slang insult, from Latin |
| 37 | 1 | Military academy cadet, slang |
| 38 | 1 | Sound of Alka–Seltzer before the fizz |
| 39 | 2 | Farm implement for cutting furrows; or truck attachment for removing snow, noun/verb, noun form that means it's possible to do this is a pangram |
| 40 | 1 | What a firefighter slides down |
| 41 | 1 | Opinion survey, homophone of above (straw, Gallup, e.g.) |
| 42 | 1 | Croquet on horseback |
| 43 | 1 | Swimming venue |
| 44 | 1 | Tire out (I’m …ed); or defecate, slang verb/noun |
| 45 | 1 | Leo, Francis, Pius, etc. (head of Roman Catholic Church) |
| 46 | 1 | Daddy |
| 47 | 1 | North American Indian ceremony involving feasting, singing and dancing |
| 48 | 1 | Strike or hit very hard |
| 49 | 1 | Cry quietly |
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