- Letters: Y/AIOPRT
- Words: 39
- Points: 189
- 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 | What you breathe |
| 2 | 1 | Honey-producing beehive collection |
| 3 | 1 | Ordered series, esp. math |
| 4 | 1 | Steep-sided gully in SW US; Spanish for creek |
| 5 | 1 | Creative activity: painting, music, literature, dance, etc |
| 6 | 1 | Really small, slang; usually paired with rhyming B word |
| 7 | 1 | Grain that is Quaker's specialty |
| 8 | 1 | Make a speech |
| 9 | 1 | Tropical fruit with black seeds |
| 10 | 1 | Slang term for father or grandfather |
| 11 | 1 | Egyptian writing sheet made from plant fiber |
| 12 | 1 | State or condition of being equal, esp. status or pay (achieve …), noun |
| 13 | 1 | Ward off a weapon with a countermove, esp. in fencing |
| 14 | 1 | Celebration (birthday …, retirement …, toga …, e.g.) |
| 15 | 1 | Peppermint candy (& friend of Marcie in “Peanuts”) or burger form |
| 16 | 1 | Feeling of sorrow for someone who’s had misfortunes, noun or verb (Mr. T: “I … the fool”), adv. form of the gerund is a pangram |
| 17 | 1 | Flower used to make opium or honor veterans |
| 18 | 1 | Depict someone (as an actor or on canvas), verb, noun form is a pangram |
| 19 | 1 | Kid’s toilet |
| 20 | 1 | Appeal to God; what you do in a house of worship |
| 21 | 1 | Existing before in time, adj. (Sorry, I have a … engagement) |
| 22 | 1 | Fact or condition of being regarded as more important (The pilot’s top … is landing safely) |
| 23 | 1 | Gain the favor of a god, spirit or person by doing something that pleases them, adj. and noun forms are pangrams |
| 24 | 1 | “…-maniac” who likes to start fires, slang abbr. |
| 25 | 1 | Uncommon; steak served with red inside |
| 26 | 1 | Sewer-dwelling rodent |
| 27 | 1 | Strong cord made by twisting together strands of fibers, noun/verb |
| 28 | 1 | Phone with dial, adj., or int’l service org (… Club) |
| 29 | 1 | Move in a circle around an axis or center |
| 30 | 1 | Dark, thick, flammable liquid distilled from wood or coal |
| 31 | 1 | Worn & shabby, or of poor quality; Scottish |
| 32 | 1 | The end of a pointed thing, noun; money given for good service, noun/verb |
| 33 | 1 | Art of clipping shrubs & trees into ornamental shapes, perfect pangram |
| 34 | 1 | Use it to carry drinks or a cafeteria meal |
| 35 | 1 | Journey, noun (you’ve won a … to Paris!), or stumble (… over your own 2 feet), verb |
| 36 | 1 | Helen of “The Iliad” home, or oz. for gold & gems |
| 37 | 1 | Keybord eror, slang |
| 38 | 1 | Newbie, from Latin “recruit” |
| 39 | 1 | Sharp, shrill bark; slang term for a person's mouth; Pacific island with giant coins |
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