Bee Roots for 2024-10-26

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: H/ABDELU
  • Words: 32
  • Points: 148
  • Pangrams: 1
Source: iStock

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, ...)
1AH5Further forward in space or time; in the lead (sports)
1BE7What your hair looks like if you don't comb it when you get up in the morning, compound slang
1BE6See something, or invite someone to see something, especially something impressive (archaic, literary, ofen biblical)
2BE6,8Body part that holds your brain, eyes, ears, nose and mouth
1BL4Dull, informal adj. or exclamation
1BU10Stupidly stubborn, obstinate, compound pangram
2DE8,10Remove spent flowers from a plant, compound verb/noun
1HA5Kosher in Islam
1HA4Strong, well, fit (… & hearty); or Revolutionary War patriot Nathan
1HA4Corridor, or Let’s Make a Deal’s Monty
2HA4,6Schlep; rent a “U” one when moving to new home
2HE4,6Body part that holds your brain, eyes, ears, nose and mouth
3HE4,6,8Recover from injury
2HE4,6Pay attention to (you didn’t … my advice)
2HE4,6Back of your foot (Achilles’ weakness), noun; or (of a dog) follow closely
1HE4Satan’s domain
1HE4Grasp in your hands, or wait “on …” (on a call with tech support, e.g.)
1HU6Chaotic din caused by a crowd of people, rhyming compound noun
2HU6,7Football team field meeting
1HU4Color or shade
1HU4Polynesian dance, or hoop you twirl around your waist
2HU4,6Base of ship, or skin of nuts

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