Tag: Chess puzzle challenge maybe crossword clue

Bill’s time: 23m 12s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

13A Places to put fliers : AVIARIES

An aviary is a large cage that houses birds, and something described as avian is bird-like or bird-related. “Avis” is Latin for “bird”.

16A A boxer’s might knock you out : DOG BREATH

Ain’t that the truth …

20A Old auto company based in Lansing, Mich. : REO

The REO Motor Company was founded by Ransom Eli Olds (hence the name REO). The company made cars, trucks and buses, and was in business from 1905 to 1975 in Lansing, Michigan. Among the company’s most famous models were the REO Royale 8 and the REO Flying Cloud.

Lansing, Michigan is unique among US state capitals in that it is not a county seat, even though it is located in Ingham County. Ingham County’s seat is Mason, Michigan.

23A One of the seven depicted in the 1995 thriller “Se7en” : GREED

The cardinal sins of Christian ethics are also known as the seven deadly sins. The seven sins are:

• Wrath
• Greed
• Sloth
• Pride
• Lust
• Envy
• Gluttony

The 1995 film “Seven” (often written as “Se7en”) is a crime thriller starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as two detectives tasked with tracking down a serial killer. The bad guy (played by Kevin Spacey) engages in thematic murder, basing each killing on one of the seven deadly sins. Critics and audiences liked this one, but squirmed quite a bit as it is also pretty brutal.

26A What some prisoners earn, in brief : GEDS

The General Educational Development (GED) tests are a battery of four tests designed to demonstrate that a student has the academic skills of someone who has graduated from an American or Canadian high school.

27A Old black-and-white police autos, to Brits : PANDA CARS

In the UK, a panda car is a relatively small police patrol vehicle. The term “panda car” arose in the 1960s, when the cars were painted black and white, the coloring of the animal. Even though color schemes have changed over the decades, small police cars in Britain are still sometimes referred to as panda cars.

31A Clay-and-calcium-carbonate mix used in cement making : MARLSTONE

Marl is a mud that is rich in calcium carbonate. Marl, or marlstone, is often used as a fertilizer for lime-deficient soil.

37A Many an epithet : DIRTY NAME
40A Epithet lead-in : AKA

An epithet is a word or phrase used in a name to describe the quality of the person or thing bearing that name. For example, King Richard I was also known as Richard the Lionheart. The term “epithet” can also describe a word that is disparaging or abusive.

38A Common con game : MONTE

Three-card monte is a confidence trick in which someone is goaded into betting money on the assumption that he or she can find the “money card” (usually a queen) among three cards placed face down. The “mark” who is being duped has all sorts of ways to lose and there are usually several people in on the scam, including others playing who seem to be winning.

39A Petite ___ (certain French partner) : AMIE

The French term “petite amie” translates literally as “little female friend”, but is used to mean “girlfriend”.

42A Farrow with a Pulitzer for his investigative journalism : RONAN

Ronan Farrow is a former US government advisor in the Obama administration who hosted “Ronan Farrow Daily” on MSNBC from 2014 to 2015. He is the son of actress Mia Farrow and filmmaker Woody Allen. Ronan is estranged from his father, ever since Allen started a relationship with Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn, who is now Allen’s wife.

47A Tourist nickname for a Southern mecca, to the chagrin of many locals : HOTLANTA

“Hotlanta” is a nickname for the Georgia capital, Atlanta, blending “hot” and “Atlanta” and reflecting the city’s notorious hot and humid summers. More positively, the moniker is used to highlight Atlanta’s “hot” music culture, with the term popularized by the Allman Brothers’ 1971 song “Hot ‘Lanta”.

48A Until, in Uruguay : HASTA

The official name of Uruguay is the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, which reflects the nation’s location on the eastern coast of South America. It is a relatively small country, the second-smallest on the continent, after Suriname. In 2009, Uruguay became the first country in the world to provide a free laptop and Internet access to every child. Now there’s a thought …

49A Destination for wagons, once : THE WEST

A conestoga is a large covered wagon that was used in many of the wagon trains that crossed North America in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The name was taken from the Conestoga Valley near Lancaster, Pennsylvania where the design was developed. The conestoga wagon resembled a boat on wheels, and often the gaps between the planks were caulked so that it would float when crossing water.

Down

1D No-goodniks : BAD EGGS

A person might be described as a “good egg” or “bad egg”. There doesn’t seem to be a clear explanation for how “egg” came to mean “person”. One suggestion is that the term reflects the resemblance between the shape of the human head and the shape of an egg.

The suffix “-nik” is of Slavic origin. It is somewhat like the suffix “-er” in English. By adding “-nik” to a noun, the new word describes a person related to what that noun describes. Examples of the use of “-nik” in mainstream English are “beatnik” and “refusenik”. Examples of more casual “-nik” terms are “neatnik” and “peacenik”.

2D Sales job that Forbes magazine once dubbed “the original side hustle,” informally : AVON REP

In 1886, a young man called David McConnell was selling books door-to-door. To enhance his sales numbers he was giving out free perfume to the ladies of the houses that he visited. Seeing as his perfume was more popular than his books, he founded the California Perfume Company in New York City and started manufacturing and selling across the country. The company name was changed to Avon in 1939, and the famous “Avon Calling” marketing campaign was launched in 1954.

3D Ancient collection of Hindu hymns : RIG VEDA

The Rigveda (also “Rig Veda”) is a collection of sacred hymns that is one of the four canonical texts of Hinduism known as the Vedas.

7D Tac preceder : SEA

SeaTac is a suburb of Seattle, Washington and is a city that surrounds the Seattle-Tacoma Airport (Sea-Tac), hence the city’s name.

21D Milky and iridescent : OPALINE

Something that is iridescent like an opal (i.e. opaline), has a lot of lustrous colors. “Iridescent” comes from the Latin word “iris” (“iridis” in the genitive case), the word for “rainbow”.

24D Lizard predator of Africa : SAND SNAKE

Sand snakes are endemic to parts of Africa and Asia. They thrive in arid environments, and are well adapted to sandy surroundings.

30D Foam designs, perhaps : LATTE ART

“Latte art” is the name given to the designs that can be drawn on the surface of coffee drinks. Some of those designs can be quite intricate.

33D Stressors for some H.S. seniors : AP TESTS

The Advanced Placement (AP) program offers college-level courses to kids who are still in high school (HS). After being tested at the end of an AP course, successful students receive credits that count towards a college degree.

35D Brunch beverage : MIMOSA

Where I come from, the cocktail known in North America as a mimosa is called a buck’s fizz, with the latter named for Buck’s Club in London where it was introduced in 1921. The mimosa came along a few years later, apparently first being served in the Paris Ritz. If you want to make a mimosa, it’s a 50-50 mix of champagne and orange juice, and it is very tasty …

36D Standard 1L course, informally : CON LAW

“One L” is a name used in general for first-year law students, especially those attending Harvard.

37D Title for some fictional lords : DARTH

The Sith are characters in the “Star Wars” universe who use the “dark side” of “the Force”, and as such are the antithesis of the Jedi Knights. Members of the Sith use the title “Darth” before their name, as in “Darth Vader”. The sixth “Star Wars” movie is titled “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith”.

38D Sugar ___ : MAPLE

The sugar maple is the state tree of New York, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin. It is also the primary source of maple syrup.

43D Org. with a “Cryptographic Support Services” page on its website : NSA

The National Cryptologic Museum (NCM) is located just outside Fort Meade in Maryland, home to the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters. The NSM is open to the public, and was established in 1993. The museum’s building was once the Colony Seven Motel.