- Letters: I/BELNTU
- Words: 60
- Points: 284
- 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 | Straight, direct course between 2 points, compound (think this puzzle’s name) |
| 2 | 1 | Imaginary band around waist, or railway or road around a city, compound |
| 3 | 1 | Holy book (starts with Genesis) |
| 4 | 1 | Liver secretion, or anger |
| 5 | 1 | Invoice, or actor Murray, noun/verb |
| 6 | 1 | Temp soldier lodging |
| 7 | 2 | Use teeth to cut into food (take a … out of the apple) |
| 8 | 2 | Russian pancake |
| 9 | 3 | Erect or assemble, verb; past tense is slang adj. for muscular, gerund and negated gerund forms are pangrams |
| 10 | 1 | Short official statement, or news summary (pin your note to the…board), pangram |
| 11 | 1 | Cheerful & full of energy, pangram adj. |
| 12 | 1 | Select group that’s superior |
| 13 | 1 | World weariness (French) |
| 14 | 1 | Concave belly button, slang |
| 15 | 1 | Computer chip maker; or what spies collect, abbr. |
| 16 | 1 | Determined to do (I’m … on finishing this puzzle), adj.; or objective, noun |
| 17 | 1 | TurboTax company, or know by feeling rather than evidence |
| 18 | 1 | Merciful, not strict (as a judge or parent, e.g.) |
| 19 | 1 | Bean for soup or curry |
| 20 | 1 | Allow; rent |
| 21 | 2 | Printed slander, noun |
| 22 | 1 | Be in a horizontal resting position, or say something false |
| 23 | 1 | Bank hold on a mortgaged property, NOT tilt |
| 24 | 1 | In place of (in … of flowers), French |
| 25 | 1 | Illumination, noun/verb (Let there be …) |
| 26 | 1 | Singsong accent |
| 27 | 1 | A queue, what you wait in for your turn |
| 28 | 1 | Cloth napkin fabric |
| 29 | 1 | Mainly brown & gray finch with a reddish breast & forehead (rhymes with the type of piano I have) |
| 30 | 1 | Dryer fluff |
| 31 | 1 | Horiz. beam across a door or window top |
| 32 | 1 | Low-calorie or low-fat in ad-speak (Miller … beer) |
| 33 | 2 | Small (Stuart or Chicken …), adj. |
| 34 | 1 | Small, tentative chew, verb; or a snack, noun |
| 35 | 1 | Number of justices on Supreme Court |
| 36 | 1 | One more than the number of holes on a golf course |
| 37 | 1 | Part of the day when it’s dark, slang spelling |
| 38 | 1 | Small bump, or small stunted ear of corn |
| 39 | 1 | (About a young woman) old enough to marry |
| 40 | 1 | Fasten with string or cord, verb/noun |
| 41 | 1 | Thin ceramic wall, counter, flooring, or roofing square |
| 42 | 1 | Cash register or drawer, noun; “up to,” preposition; or prep soil for planting, verb |
| 43 | 1 | Move into a sloping position, or fight windmills (… at) |
| 44 | 1 | Fork prong |
| 45 | 1 | Shade of color, noun; or darken car windows, verb |
| 46 | 2 | Name of a book, movie, or job, noun/verb; or a document showing you own a car or house |
| 47 | 1 | Dot above an i or j, or really small amount |
| 48 | 1 | All together, musically (Italian); Little Richard “Wop bop a loo bop” song |
| 49 | 1 | Something whole on its own but part of larger thing (apartment, Army squad, e.g.) |
| 50 | 1 | Bring together |
| 51 | 1 | Up to, preposition or conjunction (You have … 5 pm to finish) |
| 52 | 2 | Useful, formal adj. (think of what Batman wears on his waist) |
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