Bee Roots for 2021-10-30

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. The TL;DR about the site comes after the table.

Past clues are available here

Today's puzzle

Table content

root #answers coveredanswer's first two lettersanswer's lengthclue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...)
11CH4Fashionable
41CH4Bottom of face, noun; or raise it above a bar in a pull-up, verb
61CH4Move slowly with engine making regular muffled explosive sounds, verb/noun; drink a whole bottle at once (slang)
51CH5Business casual khaki pants (usually plural), or city near L.A.
21CH6Pretentious style (or almost 2X fashionable)
31CH7Knot of hair on back of head, from French
41CH8Bottom of face, noun; or raise it above a bar in a pull-up, verb
61CH8Move slowly with engine making regular muffled explosive sounds, verb/noun; drink a whole bottle at once (slang)
71CI5Easy task (it’s a …), noun; or tighten up (belt or saddle, e.g.), verb
71CI8Easy task (it’s a …), noun; or tighten up (belt or saddle, e.g.), verb
81CO4Silver Pacific salmon
91CO5Sea snail with spiral shell
101CO5Sofa, noun; express in a specific style of language, verb
111CO5Expel air from the lungs with a sudden sharp sound, verb/noun
101CO8Sofa, noun; express in a specific style of language, verb
111CO8Expel air from the lungs with a sudden sharp sound, verb/noun
121GN7Italian potato dumplings
151HI4Greater than normal (… definition TV), or stoned (… as a kite), adj.
161HI7Door fastener to frame that lets it swing open & closed, noun/verb
141HI8Involuntary spasm of the diaphragm and respiratory organs
141HI11Involuntary spasm of the diaphragm and respiratory organs
201HO5Cheap liquor
181HO6Boss (head…); Japanese
191HO6Sharpen (a blade or skill)
171HO7Large pig, noun; refuse to share, verb
131HU4What you do to a painting you want to mount on a wall, or to a criminal sentenced to the gallows
221HU5Intuition (acting on a…), or stoop down (“The...-back of Notre Dame”)
211HU7Put your arms around someone, verb/noun
221HU8Intuition (acting on a…), or stoop down (“The...-back of Notre Dame”)
231IN41/12 of a foot, noun; or move slowly, verb
231IN71/12 of a foot, noun; or move slowly, verb
241NI4Near, archaic (“Repent, the end is…!”)
251OU4Sound you make when something hurts
131UN6What you do to a painting you want to mount on a wall, or to a criminal sentenced to the gallows
161UN9Door fastener to frame that lets it swing open & closed, noun/verb

About this site

This site provides clues for a day's New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle. It exists to make it easier for Kevin Davis to take a day off. Most of the clues come from him. There may be some startup problems, but long term I think I can put the clues together with no more than half an hour's work.

The "Bee Roots" approach is to provide explicit clues for root words, not every word. This is similar to what Kevin Davis does, but without information about parts of speech 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.

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

Many thanks to Kevin Davis, whose 4,500-word clue list made this possible.