- Letters: L/ACDIRY
- Words: 62
- Points: 296
- 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 | 1 | Below 7 on the pH scale (amino …, sulfuric …, hydrochloric …) |
| 2 | 1 | Strong & unpleasant taste or smell, adj., noun and adverb forms are pangrams |
| 3 | 1 | Type of paint used in art |
| 4 | 1 | What you breathe |
| 5 | 1 | Put (fears) at rest |
| 6 | 1 | Friend (person, country) who joins you for a common purpose in a conflict, noun/verb |
| 7 | 1 | Seed covering |
| 8 | 1 | Phone, name, summon, or shout (out) |
| 9 | 1 | Arum plant referred to as a lily |
| 10 | 1 | Large bag or case, compound with lug around and synonym for everything |
| 11 | 1 | Short microscopic hairlike vibrating structure found in large numbers on the surface of certain cells; (anatomy) eyelash |
| 12 | 1 | Wearing, or encased; adj. (iron-… guarantee); archaic past participle of clothe |
| 13 | 1 | Dirt used to make ceramic pots, or boxer Ali former name |
| 14 | 4 | Ride a bike; series of events that are regularly repeated in the same order |
| 15 | 1 | Move slowly, or have casual sex with, gerund form is a pangram |
| 16 | 1 | 24-hour period |
| 17 | 1 | Monet’s fav flower, one that lasts only 24 hrs., compound |
| 18 | 1 | What you turn on a rotary phone or radio knob (don't touch that …!) |
| 19 | 1 | Worthless amount (… squat), or guitarist Bo |
| 20 | 1 | Pickle spice |
| 21 | 1 | Excellent example (that was a … of a game) |
| 22 | 1 | Waste time, compound, gerund form is a pangram |
| 23 | 1 | Power tool with bits for making holes, or practice for an emergency (fire …); noun |
| 24 | 1 | Not wet |
| 25 | 1 | Frozen water |
| 26 | 1 | Not doing anything; or, said of an engine, running but not in gear |
| 27 | 4 | Extremely happy scene or poem |
| 28 | 1 | Hip bone |
| 29 | 1 | Not healthy, sick, adverb/noun; hardly, or only with difficulty, adverb (they could … afford the cost of a new car) |
| 30 | 1 | Frilly fabric, or shoestring |
| 31 | 1 | ♀ counterpart of gentleman ("… & the Tramp") |
| 32 | 2 | Non-clerical |
| 33 | 1 | Animal or criminal den |
| 34 | 1 | Pig fat for cooking |
| 35 | 1 | Put something down |
| 36 | 1 | Someone who doesn’t tell the truth |
| 37 | 1 | Purple flower or shade |
| 38 | 1 | Monet floral subject (water …) |
| 39 | 1 | ₺ or ₤, Turkish or old Italian $ |
| 40 | 3 | Adj. for small harp, or singular of term for words to a song |
| 41 | 2 | Grouping of people based on shared physical characteristics (regardless of …, creed, or color) |
| 42 | 1 | Lively, entertaining, & mildly sexual; adj. (think car or horse speed contest) |
| 43 | 2 | Modern tire design; or arranged like spokes of a wheel, adj. |
| 44 | 2 | Extreme or new (… idea, change), adj., adverb form is a pangram |
| 45 | 1 | What a train travels on, or what you hold on stairs |
| 46 | 1 | Car or wagon that is part of a train, compound |
| 47 | 1 | Mass meeting of people for a common cause (pep, political), noun/verb, gerund form is a pangram |
| 48 | 1 | $ in Iran, Oman, & Yemen |
| 49 | 1 | Small stream |
| 50 | 1 | $ in Saudi Arabia |
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