For some reason, the Spelling Bee does not like aroar or alee. I have sent these words to the help email that invites such things, but I always get back the same form letter about technical jargon. I suppose they're landlubbers, so the nautical term is jargon to them, but I don't know why aroar doesn't make the cut. I will note, however, that the spellchecker for Medium's responses doesn't like aroar (or lethe) either. So the curators at the Times aren't alone.

In defense of the Times, note that the error message on unrecognized words is not "There is no such word." Rather, we get the less confrontational "Not in word list," as in "Maybe it's a word, but my house, my rules."