ALOE /AL.owe/ n. a genus of succulent flowering plants encompassing around 500 species

You’ve probably heard of aloe vera (literally ‘true aloe’), because of its medicinal uses, but you may not have known that this was a single species among several hundred.

Indeed, I suspect it is really this most common aloe that crossword constructors are cluing time and time again with [Natural balm], [Shampoo ingredient], and [Soothing succulent].

BTW… Quite often dictionaries list a plant genus as capitalized and you may wonder how it makes its way into the Scrabble dictionary.

The thing is, it is a common practice (reflected in dictionaries) to allow a genus name to be uncapitalized when it is being used to refer to a generic member of a genus (i.e. to a generic species).

Here’s an example that will teach you a high probably bingo word at the same time: An ALOETIC is a medicine made from several aloes.

See how the word aloes here is not referring to the genus itself, but rather to its members?

Funnily enough, today’s word has only one anagram, and that was a word you learned just yesterday: OLEA, the plural of OLEUM (an old Latin word for ‘oil’).

P.S. For Collins players, you also get the adjective ALOED, which you can use to indicate the presence of aloes. So when you see that one, don’t think it gives you permission to go around aloeing* yourself.