- Letters: O/EFGILN
- Words: 65
- Points: 282
- 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 | Creamy Xmas drink with nutmeg & rum |
| 2 | 1 | Person who has been convicted of a serious crime & often can’t vote in many places as a result |
| 3 | 1 | Sheet of ice atop the ocean, homophone of moving liquid |
| 4 | 2 | Whip (a dead horse?), verb |
| 5 | 1 | What you get when a cloud is at ground level (there was a multi-car pileup because of thick …), noun/verb |
| 6 | 2 | Thin aluminum sheet for wrapping leftovers, noun; or thwart, verb (Curses! …ed again) |
| 7 | 1 | A book (A Shakespeare first … is quite valuable), a page in a book, or a book size; from Latin for “leaf” |
| 8 | 2 | Unwise person, court jester tarot card, noun; or to trick or deceive, verb |
| 9 | 1 | Male escort; Richard Gere “American …” film |
| 10 | 2 | Leave; move from one place to another |
| 11 | 2 | Eye protector for swimming or skiing; or stare with wide & bulging eyes |
| 12 | 2 | Sport that has been described as "a good walk spoiled" (often attributed to Mark Twain, who probably never said it) |
| 13 | 1 | Away, out of, past; adj. (“… Girl” film with Affleck) |
| 14 | 2 | Orchestra chime or dinner bell |
| 15 | 2 | Mistake, noun; or fool around (… off), verb |
| 16 | 2 | Popular web search site |
| 17 | 1 | Large number (10¹⁰⁰), NOT a web search site (rather, the inspiration for the search site's name) |
| 18 | 1 | Ruffian |
| 19 | 1 | Ice house |
| 20 | 1 | Collection of facts and tips, abbr. |
| 21 | 1 | A unit of 3,000–6,000 men in the ancient Roman army; or, figuratively, a large number of people |
| 22 | 1 | Like a roaring “King” animal |
| 23 | 1 | Something that's been true of you forever, compound pangram adj. |
| 24 | 1 | Jargon |
| 25 | 1 | Roaring animal that travels in a pride (… King) |
| 26 | 1 | Tree trunk that has been cut or fallen down; official record of events, noun/verb |
| 27 | 1 | Theater section behind orchestra |
| 28 | 1 | Act of entering a computer username & password, compound noun |
| 29 | 1 | Company graphic symbol; Target’s is a red bullseye ◎ |
| 30 | 1 | Sex organ region of body (fruit of my …s); anagram of “… King” animal |
| 31 | 2 | Hang out or droop, as a dog’s tongue |
| 32 | 1 | Solitary (… wolf, e.g.), adj. |
| 33 | 2 | “Short” antonym, adj.; or yearn (for) |
| 34 | 2 | “Crazy” water bird on Canada $1 coin |
| 35 | 1 | Atomic number 10, gas in lighted signs |
| 36 | 1 | Xmas time, or playwright Coward |
| 37 | 1 | Head, slang (use your …) |
| 38 | 1 | Quantity of zero; “all” antonym |
| 39 | 1 | 1 followed 30 zeroes; Latin 9 prefix |
| 40 | 1 | Rub someone’s head with your knuckles (I gave him a …), slang |
| 41 | 1 | 12:00, midday, 🕛 |
| 42 | 1 | Murder (slang); gerund form also means the near future |
| 43 | 1 | Disconnected from the internet; or out of operation, compound adj. |
| 44 | 1 | S–shaped line or molding, noun; or having a double continuous S–shaped curve, adj. |
| 45 | 2 | Eye amorously |
| 46 | 1 | Viscous liquid used for lubrication, noun/verb; (food) a fat that's liquid at room temperature |
| 47 | 1 | Margarine |
| 48 | 1 | Mixture, or spicy Spanish stew, NOT margarine |
| 49 | 1 | Skateboard jump, or Stan’s slapstick partner |
| 50 | 1 | Veg that makes you cry when cut (for some, this is the "dreaded root veg") |
| 51 | 1 | Hooked up to the internet, compound adj. |
| 52 | 1 | Dark Chinese tea (black dragon) |
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