- Letters: D/AINOPR
- Words: 51
- Points: 227
- Pangrams: 2
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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 | Decorate (… with) (Xmas tree, e.g.) |
| 2 | 1 | Apple wireless pic & doc transfer protocol, noun; or release supplies from a plane, verb (compound) |
| 3 | 1 | Metal support for fireplace wood (firedog) |
| 4 | 1 | Non–Apple phone OS, or humanoid robot (do they dream of electric sheep?) |
| 5 | 1 | Passion (Latin “to burn”) |
| 6 | 1 | Dry (climate or land), adj. |
| 7 | 1 | Mild exclamation; or mend holes in socks, verb |
| 8 | 1 | Arab $, not supper |
| 9 | 1 | Flintstones pet, or T. Rex family abbr. |
| 10 | 1 | Extinct bird; or stupid person, slang |
| 11 | 1 | Someone who gives (blood, organs, $) |
| 12 | 1 | Thingamajig, slang; ends in “father” nickname |
| 13 | 1 | Room or bldg. entrance |
| 14 | 1 | Mahimahi; or South American freshwater fish with a golden body and red fins |
| 15 | 1 | What sink water goes down |
| 16 | 1 | Let liquid fall, as a leaky faucet or melting ice cream cone, verb/noun |
| 17 | 1 | Star Wars robot (R2D2, C3PO, BB–8), or last syllable of Google phone OS (An…) |
| 18 | 1 | Sag, or hang limply, gerund form is a pangram |
| 19 | 1 | Let fall, verb; or a tiny amount of liquid, noun, gerund form is a pangram |
| 20 | 1 | Not outside |
| 21 | 1 | Progress (make), usually plural noun, compound, contains street synonym |
| 22 | 1 | Nothing, Spanish |
| 23 | 1 | Lowest point, rock-bottom, depths; or below the observer in astronomy |
| 24 | 1 | Greek water nymph, or dragonfly larva |
| 25 | 1 | Bad smell (body …) |
| 26 | 1 | Drug class with a current epidemic (OxyContin, e.g) |
| 27 | 1 | Make someone a priest |
| 28 | 1 | Chinese bamboo-eating bear |
| 29 | 1 | Tropical plant known as the vanilla of Southeast Asia |
| 30 | 1 | Release people or supplies from a plane by ‘chute |
| 31 | 1 | “They’re out to get me!” noun (adj. form is a pangram) |
| 32 | 1 | “Excuse me,” or crime forgiveness from Pres. or Gov. |
| 33 | 2 | Give $ in exchange for goods or services, verb/noun |
| 34 | 1 | Small platform for speeches or awarding Olympic medals |
| 35 | 1 | Small lake, or “On Golden…” Henry & Jane Fonda film with Hepburn |
| 36 | 1 | Poke, nudge, or spur (reluctant person or cattle), verb/noun, gerund form is a pangram |
| 37 | 1 | Nickname of Cpl. O’Reilly in M.A.S.H., or Doppler weather sensor acronym |
| 38 | 1 | Unit of angular measure |
| 39 | 1 | AM/FM music & talk device in car & home |
| 40 | 1 | Distance from a point on a circle to the center |
| 41 | 1 | Harmful gas that seeps into homes; atomic no. 86 |
| 42 | 1 | Sudden attack, as in “air” or police;” or insect spray |
| 43 | 1 | Single unit of water falling from the sky (they “Keep Falling on My Head”), compound pangram |
| 44 | 1 | Kirk’s Yeoman Janice on Star Trek, or South African $ |
| 45 | 1 | Slang for odd or suspicious person (short for chosen by chance) |
| 46 | 1 | Swift, as in “transit,” adj., or river whitewater (plural), adv. form is a pangram |
| 47 | 1 | Tough outer skin of certain fruit, especially citrus |
| 48 | 1 | Street ("Abbey …"), or “rocky …” ice cream flavor |
| 49 | 1 | Musical form with recurring theme, often final movement of a piece, from Italian |
| 50 | 1 | Large crucifix above altar, anagram of bldg. entrance |
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