- Letters: C/AELNOV
- Words: 66
- Points: 333
- 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. And if AI tries to be too helpful, try prefixing your search with "word for" or "word meaning".
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 | Teen facial zits |
| 2 | 1 | Small recessed section of a room, aka a nook |
| 3 | 1 | Bean source of Hershey Bars |
| 4 | 1 | Phone, name, summon, or shout (out) |
| 5 | 1 | Arum plant referred to as a lily |
| 6 | 1 | Caribbean veg dish |
| 7 | 1 | Give birth, for a cow |
| 8 | 1 | Artificial waterway (Erie, Suez, Panama …) |
| 9 | 1 | Leggy French dance |
| 10 | 1 | Nix, scrub (a concert, game, date, or show; e.g.) |
| 11 | 1 | Walking stick, or striped peppermint Xmas crook |
| 12 | 1 | Tropical “lily” |
| 13 | 1 | Wheeled artillery |
| 14 | 1 | Narrow boat with pointed ends, propelled by paddling, noun/verb |
| 15 | 1 | Rapeseed oil |
| 16 | 1 | Nikon rival, or accepted (Church) lore, noun, adverb form is a pangram |
| 17 | 1 | Spanish sparkling wine, or vein to heart (vena …) |
| 18 | 1 | Large underground chamber, where stalactites and stalagmites form and bats live, noun; or give in (slang) |
| 19 | 1 | Prison “room,” or smallest unit of an organism |
| 20 | 1 | Yo-Yo Ma’s instrument (also Pablo Casals') |
| 21 | 1 | Group of related (Scottish) families |
| 22 | 1 | Archaic past tense of split or sever, especially along the grain |
| 23 | 1 | Make tidy, verb (… your room, young man!); or dirt-free, adj. |
| 24 | 2 | Split or sever, especially along the grain |
| 25 | 1 | Combo sex & waste cavity in non-mammals |
| 26 | 2 | Identical (genetic) copy, or make one, noun/verb |
| 27 | 1 | Spice used in cooking & cigarettes |
| 28 | 1 | “Dirty fuel” dug from mines; what Santa puts in your stocking if you’re bad |
| 29 | 1 | 1st part of popular soda brand name |
| 30 | 1 | Hot winter drink with marshmallows, or the powder it’s made from |
| 31 | 1 | Nest for butterfly larva, noun; or wrap up like one, verb |
| 32 | 1 | Pepsi & RC dark brown soda flavor |
| 33 | 1 | Irish mashed potatoes & cabbage (think large weapon that shoots balls) |
| 34 | 1 | Irish term for a young ♀ |
| 35 | 1 | : (punctuation mark), or intestine |
| 36 | 1 | Military rank between major & general (Hogan & Klink, e.g.) |
| 37 | 1 | Surface that curves inward like the interior of a sphere |
| 38 | 1 | Keep from sight, or keep something secret; verb (use …er to hide facial blemishes) |
| 39 | 1 | A private meeting, often used for a gathering of cardinals to elect a pope, pangram |
| 40 | 1 | Ice cream holder shape |
| 41 | 1 | Bring together for a meeting |
| 42 | 1 | Conversation, slang |
| 43 | 1 | “Warm” antonym, or “neat!” |
| 44 | 1 | Small sheltered bay (“Pirate’s …”) |
| 45 | 1 | A gathering of witches |
| 46 | 1 | Territory within or surrounded by a larger territory whose inhabitants are culturally or ethnically distinct |
| 47 | 1 | Develop gradually (Darwin said that humans and apes …d from a common ancestor), verb, negated past tense is a pangram |
| 48 | 2 | Frilly fabric, or shoestring |
| 49 | 1 | Cavalry pole weapon, noun/verb |
| 50 | 2 | From a nearby area, or a train making all stops |
| 51 | 1 | Place where something happens (exotic …) |
| 52 | 1 | Crazy, Spanish |
| 53 | 1 | Streamlined enclosure on an aircraft |
| 54 | 1 | Person with non-traditional right-wing political views, slang abbr. |
| 55 | 1 | Literary word meaning “for the [time being]” |
| 56 | 1 | Enormous body of salt water |
| 57 | 1 | A single time (they deliver … a week) |
| 58 | 1 | Decorative drapery hung above a window to hide the curtain fittings |
| 59 | 2 | The number of hydrogen atoms an element can displace or combine with (for carbon it's 4 and for oxygen it's 2), prefixed form is a pangram |
| 60 | 1 | Relating to the voice, adj. |
| 61 | 1 | Lava-spewing peak (Mount St. Helens), pangram adj. + noun |
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 social media.
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