Bee Roots for 2024-07-06

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/BCEHIO
  • Words: 34
  • Points: 124
  • Pangrams: 1
Source: Twilight Tangents

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, ...)
1BE4Borscht veg
1BI7Integration of natural sciences and engineering, especially the genetic manipulation of microorganisms to make products such as antibiotic or hormones, pangram
1BI6Relating to or resulting from living things
1BI4Use teeth to cut into food (take a … out of the apple)
1BO4Cowboy or winter shoe
2BO6,6Baby foot covering
1BO5Privacy enclosure (voting, phone …), or Lincoln assassin
1BO5Bungle, verb/noun
1BO4Each of 2 things (I’ll take this AND that), adv.
1CH4IOU note, Navy memo
1CI4Quote as evidence
1CO4Foolish old ♂, or water bird
1CO6Kid’s imaginary germ, or a body louse
1CO4Dove shelter, NOT a jacket
1ET4Engrave metal, glass or stone (…ing); or corrode (…ed away by acid)
1ET5A set of moral principles, especially ones relating to or affirming a specified group, field, or form of conduct
1HE6Full of incessant or frantic activity
1HI5“Psycho” director Alfred nickname, or slang for thumb a ride, verb; or device on a vehicle that allows it to attach a trailer, noun
1HO6Small, human-like creature with hairy feet - prominent in Tolkein stories
1HO4Owl sound, noun/verb
1HO6“Warm” sexually attractive person (he’s a real …)
1IT4What you scratch (an …)
1OB4Death write-up in newspaper, slang abbr.
1OC5Group of 8 (musicians)
2TE4,6Last word in name of Cambridge school M.I.T., abbr.
1TE5What you use to chew, plural
1TE6When the things you use to chew start to emerge, you chew on everything, and you drool all the time
1TH4Archaic form of “you”
1TI5Give 10% of your income to the Church
1TO4Short horn sound; noun/verb
1TO5What you chew with
1TO4Reusable bag, noun; or schlep, verb

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