Bee Roots for 2024-06-10

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/ABCGIL
  • Words: 51
  • Points: 193
  • Pangrams: 1
Source: IStock / Getty Images Plus

Table content

  • with first two letters of answer and length
answers coveredanswer's first two lettersanswer's lengthclue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...)
1AB5Heat water to 212°F or 100°C
1AG4Very excited to hear or see something, adj.
1AI5Garlic mayonnaise, from French for garlic
1BA6African tree
1BI8Biopharmaceutical
1BI10Study of living organisms
1BL4Gelatinous mass, or 1950s alien horror film
1BL4Group of like-minded voters
1BL4Online journal, noun/verb
1BO4Taiwan sweet tea with gelatin pearls
1BO5Italian game similar to lawn bowling
1BO4Heat water to 212°F or 100°C
1BO4Thrown weighted string weapon
1BO4Cotton seed target for weevil
1BO4Western string tie
1BO4Breast, slang
1BO6“Owie” you kiss & make better, mistake, or what 2 ghosts say
1BO8Far-right anti-government extremist movement & militia (… bois), starts with ghost scare word; originally a style of Latino popular music and dance from the 1960's
1CA5Bean source of Hershey Bars
1CA6Rough cotton fabric, or colorful cat
1CA8Caribbean veg dish
1CI4“Hi” or “Bye” in Italian (“… bella”)
1CL6Combo sex & waste cavity in non-mammals
1CL4Reason to use Drāno, or wooden shoe, or a type of dancing
1CO4“Dirty fuel” dug from mines; what Santa puts in your stocking if you’re bad
1CO41st part of popular soda brand name
1CO5Spherical or nearly spherical bacterium
1CO5Hot winter drink with marshmallows, or the powder it’s made from
1CO4Wind up spirally, verb/noun (Hamlet’s “mortal …”)
1CO4Pepsi & RC dark brown soda flavor
1CO5Baby or horse upset tummy
1CO6The act of working with someone to produce or create something, abbrev
1CO4“Warm” antonym, or “neat!”
1GI6Male escort; Richard Gere “American …” film
1GL4Semi-liquid lump, as in cheese
1GL6Worldwide, adj., as in “… warming”
1GO4Objective, or sport target or point
1GO6Large number (10¹⁰⁰), NOT a web search site
1IG5Ice house
2IL7,9Thinking that is rational
1LO4Wolf, Spanish
1LO5From a nearby area, or a train making all stops
1LO4Crazy, Spanish
1LO4A particular point or place
1LO6Room with one side open to a garden
2LO5,7Thinking that is rational
1LO4Company graphic symbol; Target’s is a red bullseye ◎
1LO4Hang out or droop, as a dog’s tongue
1OL4Mixture, or spicy Spanish stew, NOT margarine

About this site

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