Bee Roots for 2025-06-11

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
  • Letters: O/ACKLNU
  • Words: 45
  • Points: 168
  • Pangrams: 1
Source: pngwing.com

Table content

root #answers coveredclue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...)
11Soon, poetically
21Bean source of Hershey Bars
31Caribbean veg dish
41Wheeled artillery
51Rapeseed oil
61Nikon rival, or accepted (Church) lore, noun, adverb form is a pangram
71Combo sex & waste cavity in non-mammals
82Sleeveless jacket, or espionage “… & dagger” term, noun/verb, past tense is a pangram, negated form is a pangram
91It tells time
101Make a dull hollow thumping sound (also spelled with an A or O); or hit, often in the head, past tense and gerund forms are pangrams
111“Dirty fuel” dug from mines; what Santa puts in your stocking if you’re bad
1211st part of popular soda brand name
132Rooster, or slang for penis
141Hot winter drink with marshmallows, or the powder it’s made from
151Nest for butterfly larva, noun; or wrap up like one, verb
161Pepsi & RC dark brown soda flavor
171Irish mashed potatoes & cabbage (think large weapon that shoots balls)
181: (punctuation mark), or intestine
191Faint, stall, or break down (my car …ed out), verb; or hit, especially on the head, verb
201Prep or heat food
212“Warm” antonym, or “neat!”
221“Crazy” bird that pops out of a timepiece
231Rap on a door, hoping to be let in, verb; or run into, verb, or disparage, slang verb/noun (…, …. Who's there?)
241Small mound (the grassy …)
251Tree climbing marsupial “bear”
261Zen Buddhist paradoxical riddle or story for meditation, anagram of Hawaiian district or coffee grown there
271Small African tree with nuts that flavor Pepsi
281Crazy or eccentric person, NOT a chef
291South American grassy plain
301Borrowed $, noun/verb
312From a nearby area, or a train making all stops
322A door fastener with a key, noun/verb
331Crazy, Spanish
341Hang out or droop, as a dog’s tongue
351Direct one’s gaze toward someone or something, verb/noun
361“Crazy” water bird on Canada $1 coin
371Notch at the back of an arrow, noun; or fit an arrow to a bowstring, verb
381Barnes & Noble e-reader, or secluded corner
39112:00, midday, 🕛
401In grammar, a person, place or thing

About this site

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