- Letters: T/BELNOV
- Words: 46
- Points: 172
- Pangrams: 1
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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 | Borscht veg |
| 2 | 1 | VW compact car, or winged insect (scarab, e.g.) |
| 3 | 1 | It holds your pants up |
| 4 | 1 | Shape into a curve, or Oregon city |
| 5 | 1 | Well-meaning & kindly (dictator), or charitable (order), pangram adj. (starts with Italian for "good") |
| 6 | 1 | Japanese lunchbox |
| 7 | 1 | Nut that Bloody Mary chews in “South Pacific”; AKA areca nut |
| 8 | 1 | Stain (on your record), noun; or dry using absorbent material (forehead dampness), verb |
| 9 | 1 | Slang for drunk |
| 10 | 1 | Runner Usain, or what you screw into a nut |
| 11 | 1 | Hat tied under chin, or Britspeak for car hood |
| 12 | 1 | Cowboy or winter shoe |
| 13 | 1 | Baby foot covering |
| 14 | 1 | String of connected hijacked computers that send spam & launch attacks |
| 15 | 1 | Baby milk feeder |
| 16 | 1 | Friendly understanding between countries (French) |
| 17 | 2 | Thing that happens (“When in the course of human …s”) |
| 18 | 1 | Pre–Easter holiday when you give up meat, noun; or “borrowed” counterpart, verb |
| 19 | 1 | Slowly, in music & Italian |
| 20 | 1 | Pirate treasure, noun; or to steal during a riot, verb |
| 21 | 1 | State-sponsored numbers betting ticket (Powerball, e.g.) |
| 22 | 1 | “Stinging” plant, noun; or to annoy, verb |
| 23 | 1 | Group of 9 (musicians) |
| 24 | 1 | What you pass to someone in class, or ♪ in music |
| 25 | 1 | Book of fiction (romance, mystery), noun; or “new” (… idea), adj. |
| 26 | 1 | Preposition when mounting an animal or boarding a large vehicle |
| 27 | 1 | Adolescent (…ager), or numbers 13–19 |
| 28 | 1 | Inform, verb; or Swiss archer William with an overture |
| 29 | 1 | A principle or belief; or a Christopher Nolan time-travel film |
| 30 | 1 | Projecting piece of wood attached to a mortise, noun; or connect with one of those, verb |
| 31 | 1 | Shelter you sleep in while camping |
| 32 | 1 | Road use fee (paid at a booth) |
| 33 | 1 | Character of sound, a sound (dial or ring-); noun; give greater strength or firmness to a body or a muscle; verb |
| 34 | 1 | 1,000 kilograms, UK spelling |
| 35 | 1 | An implement (hammer & screwdriver, e.g.); often stored in a …box |
| 36 | 1 | Animated film or character, slang abbr. (car…) |
| 37 | 1 | Short horn sound; noun/verb |
| 38 | 1 | Drive or move in a leisurely manner, or play gently or repeatedly on a flute |
| 39 | 1 | Reusable bag, noun; or schlep, verb |
| 40 | 1 | Soft fabric, developing antler cover, or Lou Reed’s “… Underground” rock band |
| 41 | 1 | Soft cotton fabric, or a kid’s stuffed rabbit who wants to become real |
| 42 | 1 | Exhaust outlet (clothes dryer, e.g.), noun; or let out your frustrations, verb |
| 43 | 1 | Presidential rejection of a Congressional bill, noun/verb |
| 44 | 1 | Unit of electric potential (110 … socket) |
| 45 | 1 | What you do on Election Day, noun/verb |
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