Bee Roots for 2022-08-07

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
  • Letters: O/BCEHIT
  • Words: 33
  • Points: 128
  • Pangrams: 1
Source: The Italian Cultural Foundation at Casa Belvedere

Table content

  • with first two letters of answer and length
root #answers coveredanswer's first two lettersanswer's lengthclue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...)
21BI6Relating to or resulting from living things
11BI7Integration of natural sciences and engineering, especially the genetic manipulation of microorganisms to make products such as antibiotic or hormones, pangram
41BO4Hippie chic fashion; anagram of "vagrant"
51BO4Breast, slang
81BO4Cowboy or winter shoe
121BO4Each of 2 things (I’ll take this AND that), adv.
32BO5Italian game similar to lawn bowling
101BO5Privacy enclosure (voting, phone …), or Lincoln assassin
111BO5Bungle, verb/noun
61BO6“Owie” you kiss & make better, mistake, or what 2 ghosts say
71BO6Weeping sound, slang
92BO6Baby foot covering
131CH6Selection, noun; or of very good quality (especially for food), adj.
151CO4Silver Pacific salmon
161CO4Foolish old ♂, or water bird
181CO4Dove shelter, NOT a jacket
141CO5Spherical or nearly spherical bacterium
171CO6Kid’s imaginary germ, or a body louse
191EC4Reflection of a sound, reverberation, noun/verb
191EC6Reflection of a sound, reverberation, noun/verb
211HO4Tramp, vagrant; anagram of hippie chic fashion
231HO4Owl sound
221HO5Cheap liquor
201HO6Small, human-like creature with hairy feet - prominent in Tolkein stories
241HO6“Warm” sexually attractive person (he’s a real …)
251OB4Death write-up in newspaper, slang abbr.
261OB4Double reed orchestra-tuning instrument
271OC5Group of 8 (musicians)
281TO4Short horn sound; noun/verb
301TO4Reusable bag, noun; or schlep, verb
291TO5What you chew with

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.