- Letters: T/AHNORW
- Words: 69
- Points: 296
- 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 | 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) |
| 2 | 1 | Main blood pipe from heart |
| 3 | 1 | Buddhist who has achieved nirvana; ends in “cap” synonym |
| 4 | 1 | Complete & utter (nonsense), archaic adj. |
| 5 | 1 | West Indian plant that produces starch |
| 6 | 1 | Flower oil for perfume |
| 7 | 1 | ♂ deer, not ♥ |
| 8 | 1 | Archaic 3rd person singular present form of "possess" (Hell … no fury) |
| 9 | 1 | Yoga type that pairs poses with breathing |
| 10 | 1 | Shrub or tree of the rose family, with white, pink, or red blossoms and small dark red fruits, commonly used for hedges, pangram |
| 11 | 1 | Owl sound, noun/verb |
| 12 | 1 | Provide a spoken commentary |
| 13 | 1 | Swimming or floating adj. from Latin |
| 14 | 1 | French opposite of “oui,” + “painting & sculpture”; compound |
| 15 | 1 | Opposite of south |
| 16 | 2 | Write something, for example music, in a specialized system; or write comments in the margins of a book |
| 17 | 1 | Vow or pledge (you’re under one in court testimony) |
| 18 | 1 | Preposition when mounting an animal or boarding a large vehicle |
| 19 | 1 | Make a speech |
| 20 | 1 | Speak or shout wildly & at length |
| 21 | 1 | Machine gun sound |
| 22 | 1 | Palm fiber for furniture |
| 23 | 1 | Plant anchor that sucks up water |
| 24 | 1 | Move in a circle around an axis or center |
| 25 | 1 | Device or blade that spins |
| 26 | 1 | Onomatopoetic name for war trumpet |
| 27 | 1 | Hindu/Buddhist mystical text, involving sex |
| 28 | 1 | Asian veg that sounds like fortunetelling cards |
| 29 | 1 | Fortunetelling cards |
| 30 | 1 | Open filled pastry, noun; or sharp taste, adj. |
| 31 | 1 | Plaid patterned Scottish cloth |
| 32 | 1 | Fish sauce, or tooth buildup |
| 33 | 1 | Skin “ink” |
| 34 | 1 | Comparison word (bigger … a breadbox) |
| 35 | 1 | Pronoun for the other thing (this & …) |
| 36 | 1 | Unfreeze, with “out” |
| 37 | 1 | Sharp point grown by some plants as protection |
| 38 | 1 | Front of neck, “Deep …” Watergate source |
| 39 | 2 | Hurl (a baseball, e.g.) |
| 40 | 2 | Prevent from accomplishing something |
| 41 | 1 | Animated film or character, slang abbr. (car…) |
| 42 | 1 | Short horn sound; noun/verb |
| 43 | 1 | What you chew with |
| 44 | 1 | 1st 5 books of Bible in scroll form for Jews |
| 45 | 1 | Ripped, adj. or past participle |
| 46 | 1 | Bull, Spanish |
| 47 | 1 | Legal wrong, NOT pastry |
| 48 | 1 | Mexican sandwich |
| 49 | 1 | Place smaller than a city & larger than a village |
| 50 | 1 | Fast walking pace for horses or people |
| 51 | 1 | Archaic var. of “honesty”; you pledge your … in marriage vows |
| 52 | 1 | Have a desire to possess or do something |
| 53 | 1 | Sexually unrestrained or having many casual sexual relationships; or merciless and inhumane (… cruelty) |
| 54 | 2 | Document authorizing police to make an arrest, noun; or officially affirm or guarantee, verb |
| 55 | 1 | Small, hard benign skin growth (on a witch’s chin?) (…-hog, plantar …) |
| 56 | 1 | Unit of electric power |
| 57 | 1 | Interrogative akin to “Pardon? Say again?” |
| 58 | 1 | Stand with shelves for small objects, compound |
| 59 | 1 | Literary noun & adj. for “custom” (as was her …, he was … to), or contraction of “will not” |
| 60 | 1 | Chinese dumpling (… soup) |
| 61 | 1 | Slang exclamation of elation, or Amazon daily deals siteag motto "Don't … on me" |
| 62 | 1 | Medicinal plant (St. John’s …), or liquid extract from brewing grains |
| 63 | 1 | Value (net …) |
| 64 | 1 | Anger, literary |
| 65 | 1 | Angry, archaic |
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