- Letters: D/ABGINO
- Words: 47
- Points: 257
- 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 | 2 | Leave behind (… ship! To the lifeboats!), gerund form is a pangram |
| 2 | 1 | Accept or act in accordance with a decision or law; or tolerate something; or continue without fading (…ing love) |
| 3 | 1 | Performed in slow tempo (music) |
| 4 | 1 | Join something to something else |
| 5 | 1 | Filipino stew or Mexican seasoning |
| 6 | 1 | Help |
| 7 | 1 | Emblem worn as a mark of office, membership, or employment, noun/verb |
| 8 | 2 | Musical group, noun; or loop (as in “wedding” & “arm”), noun; or form a group, verb (… together) |
| 9 | 1 | Strip of material used to protect a wound or injured part of the body, noun/verb |
| 10 | 2 | Mask or headscarf, 2 spellings |
| 11 | 1 | Offer to pay a price at an auction |
| 12 | 1 | Remain or stay somewhere, archaic verb (you must go and I must …) |
| 13 | 3 | Fasten tightly, verb; problematic situation, noun |
| 14 | 1 | Decorative mark worn in the middle of the forehead |
| 15 | 1 | Be an omen of a particular outcome |
| 16 | 2 | Agent 007, Brit spy James |
| 17 | 1 | Press lightly with a piece of absorbent material in order to clean or dry something, verb; or a small amount of something, noun (Brylcreem's "A little …'ll do ya!") |
| 18 | 1 | Mild cuss (just get the … thing working!); euphemism for “condemn to Hell” expletive |
| 19 | 1 | Make a hole in the ground; enjoy (slang) |
| 20 | 1 | Eat at a restaurant |
| 21 | 2 | Dent (a … on the car door), or 1st ½ of doorbell sound |
| 22 | 1 | Wild Australian canine (“A … ate my baby!”) |
| 23 | 1 | Flintstones pet, or T. Rex family abbr. |
| 24 | 1 | Perform an action, achieve or complete something; hairstyle (American slang); social event (British slang) |
| 25 | 1 | Avoid by a sudden quick movement (… the military draft; play …ball) |
| 26 | 1 | Extinct bird; or stupid person, slang |
| 27 | 1 | Domestic canine, noun; follow closely and persistently, verb |
| 28 | 1 | Remaining silent & motionless to hide (lie …) (think domestic canine) |
| 29 | 1 | Put on (… we now our gay apparel) |
| 30 | 1 | ₫ (Vietnam $), or 2nd ½ of doorbell sound |
| 31 | 1 | Thingamajig, slang; ends in “father” nickname |
| 32 | 1 | go around from one place to another, in the pursuit of pleasure or entertainment |
| 33 | 2 | Provoke, use a spiked stick to drive cattle |
| 34 | 1 | Gland that produces sperm or eggs |
| 35 | 1 | Virtuous (“… Humor” ice cream brand); or sizable (a … amount of hot fudge); or approving exclamation (Oh …! We’re having ice cream!) |
| 36 | 1 | Tropical pea, blue dye from it, or a dark blue color (“… Girls” folk rock duo) |
| 37 | 1 | Nothing, Spanish |
| 38 | 1 | Greek water nymph, or dragonfly larva |
| 39 | 1 | Move your head up and down a little, usually to signal agreement, verb/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