Bee Roots for 2022-10-15

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/AHKMTW
  • Words: 29
  • Points: 100
  • Pangrams: 1
Source: Pinterest

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, ...)
11AM4A supply of bullets, slang abbreviation
21AM4Frenzied, adj. (Spock’s “… Time,” run …)
31AT4Basic unit of matter, “… Ant” superhero, noun/adjective (… bomb)
41HO4“Peter Pan” Captain …, or what snags a fish
61HO4Owl sound
51HO6Oriental tobacco pipe with a long, flexible tube that draws the smoke through water (smoked by the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland)
71KO4Crazy or eccentric person, NOT a chef
81KO6Act in an excessively subservient manner
91MA4Large & fast blue shark, or Japanese actor
111MA7Huge, adj.; or large extinct elephant (wooly …)
121MO4Water ditch surrounding a castle
141MO4Irrelevant, in law (it’s a … point)
151MO4Drab butterfly
101MO5♀ parent, slang
161MO5Short phrase encapsulating beliefs of an institution (Marines’ “Semper Fi”)
131MO6Hairstyle in which the head is shaved except for a central strip of hair (favored by Mr. T)
171OA4Vow or pledge (you’re under one in court testimony)
191TA6Skin “ink”
181TO4Reach for and hold; remove (… away)
221TO4Short horn sound; noun/verb
231TO5What you chew with
211TO6Ketchup & ragù fruit
201TO8Small native american axe, pangram
241WA5North American burning bush, or red-faced Native American mascot used by the Cleveland baseball team when they were the "Indians" (Chief …)
261WH4Command to a horse to make it stop or slow down
271WH4Personal pronoun, when used as an object
251WH6Immense energy or vigor (sometimes seen in comic books)
291WO4Slang exclamation of elation, or Amazon daily deals siteag motto "Don't … on me"
281WO6Rhyming exclamation of excitement or joy (Homer Simpson)

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.