Tag: Flabbergasted crossword clue

Bill’s time: 4m 48s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Pop music’s Lady ___ : GAGA

“Lady Gaga” is the stage name of Stefani Germanotta. Germanotta is a big fan of the band Queen, and she took her stage name from the marvelous Queen song titled “Radio Ga Ga”.

14A Nerve fiber : AXON

A nerve cell is more correctly called a neuron. The long nerve fiber that conducts signals away from the neuron is known as the axon. The axon is surrounded by a myelin sheath, which acts as an electrical insulator and which increases the rate the impulses pass along the axon.

15A Product of a grapevine? : RUMOR

There are competing stories about the etymology of the phrase “heard it through the grapevine”, meaning “heard it by means of gossip or rumor”. One is that it is a reference to the Grapevine Tavern in Greenwich Village in New York City. The Grapevine was a popular meeting place for Union officers and Confederate spies during the Civil War, and so was a great spot for picking up and spreading vital gossip.

16A Company bigwig : EXEC

A bigwig is someone important. The use of the term “bigwig” harks back to the days when men of authority and rank wore … big wigs.

18A Kind of acid that is the building block for a protein : AMINO

Amino acids are essential to life in many ways, not least of which is their use as the building blocks of proteins. Nine amino acids are considered “essential” for humans. These nine must be included in the diet as they cannot be synthesized in the body.

19A Something you click that starts “http” : LINK

“http” are the first letters in many Internet links. “http” stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. More secure and “safer” websites (like this one!) use links starting with “https”, which stands for “http secure”.

23A Dashboard reading, for short : RPM

Back in the 1800s, “dashboard” was the name given to a “board” placed at the front of a carriage to stop mud from “dashing” against the passengers in the carriage, mud that was kicked up by the hooves of the horses. Quite interesting …

25A Top color in a rainbow : RED

At either end of the visible light spectrum are the invisible forms of radiation known as infrared (IR) light and ultraviolet (UV) light. IR light lies just beyond the red end of the visible spectrum, and UV light lies just below the violet end.

26A Pecan or pistachio : NUT

The pecan is the state tree (and state nut) of Texas, and also the state nut of Alabama, Arkansas, California and Louisiana. That’s not all: Oklahoma’s official state meal includes pecan pie!

The pistachio is a small tree that produces some very tasty seeds. We see the seeds in grocery stores labeled as “nuts”, but botanically they are termed “drupes”. Drupe or nut, they’re delicious …

32A Cereal with “marbits” and a leprechaun mascot : LUCKY CHARMS (giving “lucky duck”)

Lucky Charms is a General Mills breakfast cereal that first hit the shelves in 1964. The initial idea was to produce a cereal that brought to mind charms on a charm bracelet. The cereal’s mascot is a leprechaun whose original name was L. C. Leprechaun, then Sir Charms, and finally Lucky the Leprechaun.

40A Italian volcano : ETNA

Mount Etna on the island of Sicily is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy, and indeed the largest of all active volcanoes in Europe. Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius. Mt. Etna is home to a 110-km long narrow-gauge railway, and two ski resorts. It is sometimes referred to as “Mongibello” in Italian, and as “Mungibeddu” (sometimes “Muncibeddu”) in Sicilian. The English name “Etna” comes from the Greek “aitho” meaning “I eat”.

42A Toy that comes out of a spray can : SILLY STRING (giving “silly goose”)

Silly String is a brand of aerosol string. The “string” exits the aerosol can as a liquid, with the solvent evaporating rapidly in mid-air resulting in a continuous strand. Aerosol string is used as a toy, an application that really annoys me (I’m an old grouch!). However, the military has a use for the product, spraying it over areas where tripwires are suspected. The string falls to the ground if none are present, but gets caught on tripwires that are present without activating any explosive.

44A Horse with a spotted coat : DAPPLE

A dapple is a mottled marking on the coat of perhaps a horse or a dog.

48A Off-roader, in brief : ATV

All-terrain vehicle (ATV)

50A What Bart Simpson sometimes calls Lisa : SIS

Lisa Simpson is Bart’s brainy younger sister on TV’s “The Simpsons”. She is voiced by actress Yeardley Smith. In a 2008 episode of the show, Lisa enters a crossword tournament. Crossword celebrities Merl Reagle and Will Shortz make appearances in that episode, basically playing cartoon versions of themselves.

51A Fowl play? … or words that can follow the starts of 20-, 32- and 42-Across : DUCK, DUCK, GOOSE

“Duck, Duck, Goose” is a kid’s game, and not one that I’ve heard of outside of crosswords, to be honest …

63A Playing card better known as a jack : KNAVE

The playing card known as a jack is also known as a knave. “Knave” was the original term, the same term used for a male servant of a king and queen. The term “jack” came into usage in games played by “common folk” in the 1600s.

Down

1D Gallivant, with “about” : GAD …

“Gallivant” is such a lovely word, and is probably a derivative of “gallant”. To gallivant is to gad about, to flirt, wander in search of pleasure or amusement. My mother was always accusing me of gallivanting when I was a youth …

2D Tool for Paul Bunyan : AXE

Paul Bunyan is a character of American myth. He is a skilled lumberjack, and has a sidekick called Babe the Blue Ox. Both Bunyan and Babe are gigantic in size.

3D Flabbergasted : GOBSMACKED

“Gobsmack” is slang from Britain and Ireland. “Gob” is also slang for “mouth”. So someone who is gobsmacked has received a smack in the “mouth”, is stunned.

Apparently, there was a 1772 magazine article that described “flabbergasted” as a word that was in vogue at the time. That article also stated that the origin of the term was uncertain. Someone who is flabbergasted is utterly astonished. Like me, most of the time …

6D Muggy : HUMID

Our term “muggy” means “warm and humid”, and comes from the Old Norse word “mugga” that describes “drizzling mist”.

21D Three-point hoops shot : TREY

A trey is a three in a deck of cards. The term “trey” can also be used for a domino with three pips, and even for a three-point play in basketball.

22D Trains for a marathon, e.g. : RUNS

The marathon commemorates the legendary messenger-run by Pheidippides from the site of the Battle of Marathon back to Athens, and is run over 26 miles and 385 yards. The first modern Olympic marathon races were run over a distance that approximated the length of the modern-day Marathon-Athens highway, although the actual length of the race varied from games to games. For the 1908 Olympics in London, a course starting at Windsor Castle and ending in front of the Royal Box at White City Stadium was defined. That course was 26 miles and 385 yards, the standard length now used at all Olympic Games. Organizers of subsequent games continued to vary the length of the race, until a decision was made in 1921 to adopt the distance used in London in 1908.

24D It’s plum dried out! : PRUNE

A prune is a dried plum. The name “prune” comes from the Latin “prunum”, the word for “plum”.

28D “The Brain — is wider than the ___” (Emily Dickinson poem) : SKY

Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 1800 poems in her lifetime, with less than a dozen published before she died in 1886. Emily’s younger sister discovered the enormous collection, and it was published in batches over the coming decades.

30D Bacchanalian party : ORGY

A bacchanalia is a drunken spree. The term “bacchanalia” derives from the ancient Roman festival held in honor of Bacchus, the god of winemaking.

31D Cooking appliance with a rotating spit : ROTISSERIE

We use the term “rotisserie” to describe a cooking device used to roast meat. The French word “rôtisserie” describes a shop selling cooked meats (“rôti” is French for “roasted”). We first absorbed the French term into English in the 1800s, when “rotisserie” described a similar establishment. It was only in the 1950s that we started to describe the home-cooking apparatus as a rotisserie.

33D Alvin and his backup singers : CHIPMUNKS

Alvin and the Chipmunks is a cartoon musical group that was created for the recording of a novelty song in 1958 called “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)”. The three Chipmunks (Alvin, Simon and Theodore) were all voiced by singer Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. but with a speedy playback to create high-pitched voices.

34D Dante divided it into nine circles : HELL

In Dante’s “Inferno”, Hell is represented as nine circles of suffering. The nine circles of Hell are:

1. Limbo
2. Lust
3. Gluttony
4. Greed
5. Anger
6. Heresy
7. Violence
8. Fraud
9. Treachery

36D Ho-hum feeling : ENNUI

“Ennui” is the French word for “boredom”, and is a term that we now use in English. It’s one of the few French words we’ve imported and haven’t anglicized, and actually pronounce “correctly”.

40D Triage sites, for short : ERS

Triage is the process of prioritizing patients for treatment, especially on the battlefield. The term “triage” is French and means “sorting”.

43D DVR pioneer : TIVO

TiVo is a digital video recorder (DVR) that revolutionized the way we watch television. The first TiVo devices were installed in homes in 1999, when they were the first consumer DVRs to hit the market. TiVo was originally marketed as a way to “pause live TV.” It quickly became known for its ability to record TV shows and movies, allowing viewers to watch them at their convenience.

48D Desert plant with many uses : AGAVE

The agave is a succulent plant found mainly in Mexico. Surprisingly (to me, anyway), the agave is unrelated to the cactus, and isn’t related to the aloe plant either. The blue agave is used in the production of tequila.

51D What some tech companies mine : DATA

The process of data mining is used to extract information from a database and present it in a form that facilitates further use.

52D Home of Canyonlands National Park : UTAH

Canyonlands is a magnificent national park in southeast Utah, not far from Moab. The canyons in the park, and the associated mesas and buttes, were formed mainly by the Colorado and Green Rivers.

54D Fall asleep, with “out” : CONK …

The phrase “conk out” was coined by airmen during WWI, and was used to describe the stalling of an engine.

55D “The Bridge on the River ___” : KWAI

“The Bridge over the River Kwai” is a novel by Pierre Boulle, and the basis of the screenplay for the award -winning film “The Bridge on the River Kwai”. Note that “over” becomes “on” for the movie title.

60D Hoopla : ADO

The word “hoopla” means “boisterous excitement”. The term probably comes from “houp-là”, something the French say instead of “upsy-daisy”. Then again, “upsy-daisy” probably isn’t something said very often here in the US …

61D Place to pray : PEW

A pew is a church bench, usually one with a high back. The original pews were raised and sometimes enclosed seats in the church used by women and important men or families. “Pew” comes from the Old French “puie” meaning “balcony, elevation”.