Bee Roots for 2024-10-16

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: T/CINOUY
  • Words: 37
  • Points: 166
  • Pangrams: 1
Source: pngwing.com

Table content

root #answers coveredanswer's first letterclue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...)
11CLarge town (NY, LA, Chicago, etc.)
21CTropical fruit in Mounds & Piña Colada
32CCreate a mixed drink, potion, or wild story
41CKeep going, or restart after an interruption
51CFoolish old ♂, or water bird
62CSoft fabric or its plant source
71CTally, verb; or title for Dracula & Monte Cristo, noun
81CShire in the UK, Kings for Brooklyn, Clark for Las Vegas, Broward for Ft. Lauderdale
101CCardboard person (how you make one), or spy intermediary, compound
111IEnter (go … the room), preposition
122ITurboTax company, or know by feeling rather than evidence
131IReally small, slang; usually paired with rhyming B word
141NVague idea, or small sewing accessory
151NFruit consisting of a hard or tough shell around an edible kernel
161OPreposition when mounting an animal or boarding a large vehicle
171TSilvery-white metal, atomic number 50 (Cat on a Hot … Roof)
181TArchaic for shade of color, seen now only in “–URE of iodine”
191TShade of color, noun; or darken car windows, verb
201TVery small, adj., “Christmas Carol” kid
211TCarbonated water often mixed with gin
221TBroadway award, or Maj. Nelson on "Jeannie"
231TAnimated film or character, slang abbr. (car…)
241TShort horn sound; noun/verb
251TPromote, or offer horse racing tips
261TCollege fee
271TUpper body garment in a uniform or in ancient Greece & Rome
281TAll together, musically (Italian); Little Richard “Wop bop a loo bop” song
291TBallet skirt, or S Afr Bishop Desmond
301TWealthy, powerful industry mogul (oil); F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Last …” unfinished novel
91UDivide into pieces with a knife or other sharp implement, verb/noun
311UPriestly anointing with oil; “extreme” on deathbed
321USomething whole on its own but part of larger thing (apartment, Army squad, e.g.)
331UBring together
341UArchaic preposition (Handel’s Messiah “For … us a child is born”)

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