- Letters: L/CDEINU
- Words: 59
- Points: 278
- 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.
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 | 3 | Prison “room,” or smallest unit of an organism |
| 2 | 1 | Yo-Yo Ma’s instrument (also Pablo Casals') |
| 3 | 1 | Medical facility (health …) |
| 4 | 2 | Hint, or what a detective seeks (Get a …!), noun/verb |
| 5 | 2 | Hold close for affection |
| 6 | 2 | Remove unwanted from the herd |
| 7 | 2 | Refuse an offer |
| 8 | 1 | Place to get cold cuts |
| 9 | 1 | Michael’s computer company, or farmer locale in kid’s song |
| 10 | 2 | Believe true even when you know better |
| 11 | 2 | Pass time aimlessly or unproductively |
| 12 | 1 | Pickle spice |
| 13 | 2 | Pistol fight at dawn |
| 14 | 2 | Not shiny, adjective/verb |
| 15 | 2 | Leave out a sound or syllable when speaking |
| 16 | 2 | Dodge, or fail to be grasped |
| 17 | 1 | Frozen water spear formed from drips |
| 18 | 2 | Not doing anything; or, said of an engine, running but not in gear |
| 19 | 2 | Tend toward or feel favorably disposed toward, verb; or slope, noun |
| 20 | 2 | Contain; or make part of something (the room charge …s breakfast), pangram (and so is its past tense) |
| 21 | 1 | Summary opening sentence or paragraph of a news article (bury the …); NOT "follow" antonym |
| 22 | 1 | Allow someone to borrow from you (“Friends, Romans, Countrymen, … me your ears”) |
| 23 | 1 | Merciful, not strict (as a judge or parent, e.g.) |
| 24 | 1 | One of the nine essential amino acids |
| 25 | 1 | Itchy hair parasites |
| 26 | 1 | Cover for the top of a jar; or skin that covers your eye |
| 27 | 1 | Be in a horizontal resting position, or say something false |
| 28 | 1 | Bank hold on a mortgaged property, NOT tilt |
| 29 | 1 | In place of (in … of flowers), French |
| 30 | 3 | A queue, what you wait in for your turn |
| 31 | 1 | Cloth napkin fabric |
| 32 | 1 | Expressed clearly; easy to understand |
| 33 | 2 | Soothe (… into a false sense of security), verb; or a pause in activity, noun |
| 34 | 1 | Doozy, or “To Sir With Love” singer |
| 35 | 1 | Moon, French (Debussy’s “Clair de …”) |
| 36 | 2 | Tool to sew, noun; or goad, verb |
| 37 | 2 | The central structure in an atom or cell |
| 38 | 1 | Having no legal or binding force; invalid |
| 39 | 1 | Parent’s brother (… Sam) |
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