Bee Roots for 2022-10-27

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: F/ABDLOR
  • Words: 29
  • Points: 109
  • Pangrams: 1
Source: illinoiswildflowers.info

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, ...)
21AF4Jackson 5 hairstyle
101AF4Distant
11AF6Have enough money to pay for something
41AL5Cool & distant in behavior, adj.; anagram of bath sponge
31AL7Grass for hay, or Little Rascal
51BA4Throw up (slang)
61BO5Critic’s slang adj. for a wildly successful show or film
71DO4Remove a hat or clothing
81FA4Autumn, noun; or plummet, verb
111FA5Unit of electrical capacitance
121FA5Ancient grain used in salad & soup, not King Tut
91FA7Statistical decrease, or result of slipping while on a ladder; compound
131FL4Soft, loose flesh on a person’s body; fat
141FL5Weather event involving rivers and streams overflowing, noun/verb (it was a 100-year …)
151FL5What you walk on inside (You’re getting mud on my clean …!)
171FL5Plants of a particular region (… & fauna)
181FL6Involving flowers
161FL10Bottom of a car interior, or wood plank in your home that you walk on; compound pangram; starts with above
191FO4Baby horse or other equine, noun/verb
201FO4What you do to sheets after laundry, or quit a hand in poker
211FO4What you eat; victuals
221FO4Unwise person, court jester tarot card, noun; or to trick or deceive, verb
231FO4Shallow place in a river or stream where you can cross on foot or in a car, noun/verb (also, a major car maker)
241FO4Meeting place (Roman …, online discussion…)
251LO4Unit of bread, noun; or idle (… around), verb
261LO5Bath sponge
271OF5Entrails & organs used as food
281OF7Empty a truck, or get rid of something unwanted
291RO4Top of a house (where Santa lands)

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.