Bee Roots for 2025-08-27

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: L/ADINVY
  • Words: 50
  • Points: 238
  • Pangrams: 1
Source: Nodar Chernishev/Getty Images

Table content

root #answers coveredclue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...)
11Put (fears) at rest
21Friend (person, country) who joins you for a common purpose in a conflict, noun/verb
31Yearly record book
42Opening at the end of the alimentary canal through which solid waste matter leaves the body, adj. form also means uptight
51Heavy block for metalworking (… Chorus from Verdi's Il Trovatore)
61Make use of (… yourself of), or use (to no …)
71Eager for or enthusisatic about (… reader)
81Move slowly, or have casual sex with
91Fop, or foppish (“Yankee Doodle …” Cagney film)
10124-hour period
111Monet’s fav flower, one that lasts only 24 hrs., compound
121What you turn on a rotary phone or radio knob (don't touch that …!)
131Worthless amount (… squat), or guitarist Bo
141Pickle spice
151Excellent example (that was a … of a game)
161Waste time (compound)
171Not doing anything; or, said of an engine, running but not in gear
182Extremely happy scene or poem
191Not healthy, sick, adverb/noun; hardly, or only with difficulty, adverb (they could … afford the cost of a new car)
201Not on the coast
212Decorate something by embedding pieces of a different material in it, flush with its surface, compound
221♀ counterpart of gentleman ("… & the Tramp")
231Hawaiian porch or island
241Alight on the ground, verb/noun
251♀ who owns your apartment, compound
261Molten rock from a volcano
272Put something down
281Monet floral subject (water …)
292Furiously angry
301Spike that’s hammered, noun/verb
311Seafaring military force, adj., not belly button
321Conceited (Carly Simon “You’re So …”)
334Having a sound basis in logic or fact; legally binding, one of its negated forms is a pangram
341Person who deliberately destroys or damages property (named for a Germanic people that sacked Rome)
352Flavor from beans of white (plain …) ice cream + chemical compound of that flavor, C₈H₈O₃
361Small glass container (… of poison), NOT despicable
371Large & luxurious country house (Roman …)
382Bad guy in a story
391Plastic used to make records
401Producing powerful feelings or strong, clear images in the mind (a … memory); or, of a color, intensely deep or bright

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