- Letters: A/GILNOZ
- Words: 62
- Points: 334
- 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
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| root # | answers covered | answer's first letter | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | A | Another time; once more; adv. |
| 2 | 1 | A | How old you are, noun; or grow older, verb; or period of history, noun |
| 3 | 1 | A | Very excited to hear or see something, adj. |
| 4 | 1 | A | Extreme pain |
| 5 | 1 | A | Be sick |
| 6 | 1 | A | Garlic mayonnaise, from French for garlic |
| 7 | 2 | A | Pond scum |
| 8 | 2 | A | Sync up positionally (… the 2 holes so you can put a screw through them) |
| 9 | 1 | A | Down or next to (… the road), during (… the way), or with (brought …), preposition or adv. |
| 10 | 1 | A | Clock with hands; not digital; adj. |
| 11 | 1 | A | Comparison (life is like a box of chocolates) |
| 12 | 1 | A | Medical term for severe (chest) pain |
| 13 | 1 | A | They can be acute, right, or obtuse |
| 14 | 1 | A | Yearly record book |
| 15 | 1 | A | Soon, poetically |
| 16 | 1 | A | Opening at the end of the alimentary canal through which solid waste matter leaves the body, adj. form also means uptight |
| 32 | 1 | A | Atom or molecule with a net electric charge |
| 17 | 1 | G | Choke or retch, verb; or material placed over someone's mouth to prevent them from speaking or crying out, noun/verb |
| 18 | 1 | G | Super enthusiastic; Biden inauguration National Anthem singer |
| 19 | 2 | G | Increase the amount or rate of (you always … a few pounds on a cruise), noun, adj. form is a pangram |
| 20 | 1 | G | Formal ball or fundraiser (The Met …, e.g.) |
| 21 | 1 | G | Asian plant of the ginger family, widely used in cooking and medicine |
| 22 | 2 | G | Liver secretion, or bold behavior |
| 23 | 1 | G | 128 liquid oz. |
| 24 | 2 | G | Group of thugs ("Working on the Chain …"), noun/verb |
| 25 | 1 | G | Lanky & bumbling; gerund (think a newborn foal trying to stand; starts with a group of thugs such as the Crips; the more common term ends in –LY) |
| 26 | 2 | G | Nerve cluster |
| 27 | 1 | G | Stare intently |
| 28 | 1 | G | Fit window panes, or overlay with a shiny coating |
| 29 | 1 | G | Nervous system connective tissue “cell,” (anagram of venomous lizard “monster”) |
| 30 | 1 | G | Objective, or sport target or point |
| 31 | 1 | G | Intend to do, slang contraction |
| 50 | 1 | G | Slang for a very large number (we had …s of customers) |
| 33 | 1 | L | Fall behind, verb/noun |
| 34 | 1 | L | Inlet separated by a reef; “Blue …” film with Brooke Shields |
| 35 | 1 | L | Hawaiian porch or island |
| 36 | 1 | L | Sheep (wool) oil, used as skin moisturizer |
| 37 | 1 | L | Put something down |
| 38 | 1 | L | Relax, idle (… around) |
| 39 | 1 | L | South American grassy plain |
| 40 | 2 | L | Borrowed $, noun/verb |
| 41 | 1 | L | Room with one side open to a garden |
| 42 | 1 | L | Tropical Asian fruit similar to lychee |
| 43 | 1 | N | Indiaan flaat breaad |
| 44 | 1 | N | Annoy or irritate with persistent fault-finding or continuous urging |
| 45 | 2 | N | Spike that’s hammered, noun/verb |
| 46 | 1 | N | Grandma, slang; or Peter Pan dog |
| 47 | 2 | N | 9–sided shape |
| 48 | 1 | Z | Sharp change of direction; usually the second part of a compound for a path with multiple sharp changes of direction |
| 49 | 2 | Z | Path with multiple sharp changes of direction; compound adj./verb |
| 51 | 1 | Z | Sunflower within the daisy family (what other flower starts with Z?) |
| 52 | 1 | Z | An area with a particular purpose, noun; divide an area into parts with designated purposes, verb (residential …) |
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