Constructed by: David Tuffs
Edited by: Will Shortz
Not your puzzle? Try today’s …
… syndicated NY Times crossword
Today’s Reveal Answer: Translated
Themed answers are all two-word phrases. The second word is a translation of the first, from English to a language specified in the clue. Devious …
- 62A Like the second word in 17-, 24-, 37-/40-, 38- and 50-Across vis-à-vis the first word : TRANSLATED
- 17A Faultless, biblically [Spanish] : WITHOUT SIN (“sin” is Spanish for “without”)
- 24A Substitute on TV [Czech] : GUEST HOST (“host” is Czech for “guest”)
- 37A With 40-Across, what’s fatefully “cast” in a quote attributed to Julius Caesar [German] : THE …
- 40A See 37-Across : … DIE (“die” is German for “the”)
- 38A Bakery container [Spanish] : BREAD PAN (“pan” is Spanish for “bread”)
- 50A Outspoken agitator [Dutch] : FIREBRAND (“brand” is Dutch for “fire”)
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… a complete list of answers
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Bill’s time: 13m 55s
Bill’s errors: 0
Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies
Across
14 Actor Damon or Bomer : MATT
Matt Damon is an actor and screenwriter from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Damon’s big break came with the 1997 movie “Good Will Hunting”, in which he starred. He co-wrote the screenplay with his childhood friend Ben Affleck.
16 Fruit with a rind : MELON
Melons are plants with edible, fleshy fruits that are usually sweet. The fruit of a melon is actually a berry.
19 Backs out unexpectedly : BAILS
The phrase “to bail out” (sometimes just “to bail”) means to leave suddenly. We’ve been using the term since the early thirties, when it originated with airline pilots. To bail out is to make a parachute jump.
20 Bane : SCOURGE
Today, we tend to use the word “bane” to mean “anathema, a source of persistent annoyance”. A few centuries ago, a bane was a cause of harm or death, perhaps a deadly poison.
21 Boot camp participant : ENLISTEE
“Boot camp” is US Marine slang that dates back to WWII. “Boot” was a slang term for a recruit that dates back further, to the Spanish-American War. “Boots” were the leggings worn by American sailors.
23 Setting for part of “Frankenstein” : LAB
Our term “laboratory”, often shortened to “lab”, comes from the Medieval Latin word “laboratorium” meaning “place for labor, work”. This in turn comes from the Latin verb “laborare” meaning “to work”.
Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel has the full title of “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus”. The subtitle underscores one of the themes of the book, i.e. a warning about the expansion into the Industrial Revolution.
25 Competitor with variable skills? : MATHLETE
A mathlete is someone who competes in mathematics competitions.
Algebra (alg.) is a branch of mathematics in which arithmetical operations are performed on variables rather than specific numbers (x,y etc). The term “algebra” comes from the Arabic “al jebr” meaning “reunion of broken parts”.
30 Filming locale for “the beach” in “Lost” : OAHU
“Lost” is a science fiction drama that originally aired from 2004 to 2010. The show kicks off with a passenger airliner crashing a tropical island as it flies from Sydney bound for Los Angeles. I haven’t seen the show myself and I hear that the intriguing plot didn’t really come to a satisfying conclusion. Others would disagree …
31 Threepio’s companion : ARTOO
Artoo’s proper name is R2-D2 (also “Artoo-Detoo”). R2-D2 is the smaller of the two famous droids from the “Star Wars” movies. British actor Kenny Baker, who stood just 3 feet 8 inches tall, was the man inside the R2-D2 droid for the first six of the “Star Wars” movies.
C-3PO (or “Threepio”) is the protocol droid that appears in the “Star Wars” movie franchise.
34 Pick for a pendant : OPAL
97% of the world’s opals come from Australia, so it’s no surprise perhaps that the opal is the national gemstone of the country. The state of South Australia provides the bulk of the world’s production, i.e. about 80%.
37 With 40-Across, what’s fatefully “cast” in a quote attributed to Julius Caesar [German] : THE …
40 See 37-Across : … DIE (“die” is German for “the”)
Supposedly, when Julius Caesar marched back to Rome from Gaul, he defiantly “crossed the Rubicon” with his army while uttering the words “Alea iacta est” (“The die is cast”).
42 Single numbers? : SOLI
“Soli” (the plural of “solo”) are pieces of music performed by one artist, whereas “tutti” are pieces performed by all of the artists.
44 Adherent of a philosophy of wisdom, justice, courage and moderation : STOIC
Zeno of Citium was a Greek philosopher famous for teaching at the Stoa Poikile, the “Painted Porch”, located on the north side of the Ancient Agora of Athens. Because of the location of his classes, his philosophy became known as stoicism (from “stoa”, the word for “porch”). We get our adjective “stoic”, meaning “indifferent to pleasure or pain”, from the same root.
45 “Doin’ the Pigeon” dancer on “Sesame Street” : BERT
The muppet character named Bert usually plays the straight man to his partner character Ernie. Bert has a unibrow, while Ernie has no brows at all.
50 Outspoken agitator [Dutch] : FIREBRAND (“brand” is Dutch for “fire”)
A firebrand is a piece of burning wood that is used to kindle a fire. In a figurative sense, a firebrand is an agitator, someone who kindles passions.
55 Phone-y document? : FAX
A facsimile is a copy. The term comes from the Latin phrase “fac simile” meaning “make similar”, with “fac” being the imperative form of “facere”, to make. The term “fax” (as in “fax machine”) is an abbreviated form of “facsimile”.
61 The Ingalls family’s little house on the prairie, e.g. : CABIN
Laura Ingalls Wilder was an author from Pepin, Wisconsin who is best remembered for her “Little House” series of children’s novels. The series was based on her own childhood in a pioneer family that moved from Wisconsin to Kansas and back again.
66 Indian food cooked on a tawa : ROTI
Naan (also “nan”) bread is very popular in Indian restaurants, as well as in other West, Central and South Asian cuisines. Indian Naan is traditionally baked in a clay oven known as a tandoor.
68 Comic Chris of “S.N.L.” : REDD
Actor and stand-up comedian Chris Redd joined the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in 2017, after a stint with the Second City Touring Company based in Chicago.
Down
1 M3, X3 and 3 Series, for three : BMWS
The initialism “BMW” stands for “Bayerische Motoren Werke”, which translates into Bavarian Motor Works. BMW was making aircraft engines during WWI, but had to cease that activity according to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The company then started making motorcycles, and moved into automobile production starting in 1928. BMW moved back into aircraft engine manufacturing during the build-up of the Luftwaffe prior to WWII.
2 Like some church matters : LAIC
Anything described as laic (or “laical, lay”) is related to the laity, those members of the church who are not clergy. The term “laic” ultimately comes from the Greek “laikos” meaning “of the people”.
3 Palindromic guy : OTTO
The three most famous palindromes in English have to be:
- Able was I ere I saw Elba
- A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!
- Madam, I’m Adam
One of my favorite terms is “Aibohphobia”, although it doesn’t appear in the dictionary and is a joke term. “Aibohphobia” is a great way to describe a fear of palindromes, by creating a palindrome out of the suffix “-phobia”.
4 Title monster in an H. P. Lovecraft story : CTHULHU
H. P. Lovecraft was an author of horror, fantasy and science fiction. His books aren’t really my cup of tea …
5 Frida Kahlo creations : ARTE
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter famous for her self-portraits. She was married to the equally famous artist Diego Rivera. Kahlo was portrayed by actress Salma Hayek in a film about her colorful life called “Frida” released in 2002.
7 Final bid? : ADIEU
“Adieu” is French for “goodbye, farewell”, from “à Dieu” meaning “to God”. The plural of “adieu” is “adieux”.
8 Pasta named for quills : PENNE
The pasta known as penne comes in two main types, i.e. penne lisce (which is smooth) and penne rigate (which is furrowed).
11 Bush-nominated Supreme Court justice : ALITO
Associate Justice Samuel Alito was nominated to the US Supreme Court by President George W. Bush. Alito is the second Italian-American to serve on the Supreme Court (Antonin Scalia was the first). Alito studied law at Yale and while in his final year he left the country for the first time in his life, heading to Italy to work on his thesis about the Italian legal system.
12 Romeo and Juliet, e.g. : ROLES
In Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, it is explicitly stated that Juliet is 13 years of age, and the assumption is that Romeo is perhaps a little older.
15 Constant irritant : BUGBEAR
A bugbear is a character from English folklore, a goblin in the form of a bear who was said to eat naughty children. Our contemporary bugbear is less scary and is simply something that is annoying or irritating.
22 Tab for a trip : LSD
The drug LSD is often sold impregnated into blotting paper. The paper blotter is usually divided into squares with ¼-inch sides, with each square referred to as a “tab”.
25 Bon ___ : MOT
“Bon mot” translates from French as “good word”. We use “bon mot” (and sometimes just “mot”) to mean “quip, witticism”.
27 One of the Huxtable kids on 1980s-’90s TV : THEO
Malcolm-Jamal Warner was the child actor who played Theo Huxtable on “The Cosby Show”. You can see the grown-up Warner today, playing Dr. Alex Reed on the BET sitcom “Reed Between the Lines”.
28 Preceder of cuatro or chic? : TRES
In Spanish, “tres” (three) is the number before “cuatro” (four).
“Très chic” is a French term meaning “very stylish”.
33 Classic TV kid whose name sounds like two letters of the alphabet : OPIE
Opie Taylor is the character played by Ron Howard on “The Andy Griffith Show”. Opie lives with widowed father Andy Taylor (played by Andy Griffith) and his great-aunt Beatrice “Aunt Bee” Taylor (played by Frances Bavier). Ron Howard first played the role in 1960 in the pilot show, when he was just 5 years old. Howard sure has come a long way since playing Opie Taylor. He has directed some fabulous movies including favorites of mine like “Apollo 13”, “A Beautiful Mind” and “The Da Vinci Code”.
36 Pre-euro money : LIRE
The word “lira” is used in a number of countries for currency. “Lira” comes from the Latin for “pound” and is derived from the British pound sterling, the value of a Troy pound of silver. For example, the lira (plural “lire”) was the official currency of Italy before the country changed over to the euro in 2002.
38 Targets for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren : BIG BANKS
Bernie Sanders has served as a US Senator from Vermont since 2007. Sanders often describes himself as a democratic socialist, and used to appear on the ballot as an independent. Prior to joining the Democratic Party in 2015, Sanders had been the longest-serving independent in the history of the US Congress.
Elizabeth Warren is the senior US Senator from Massachusetts, and the first female to hold that office for her state. Warren is a prominent Democratic and is a favorite of the progressive wing of the party.
41 Hypothetical entities, for short : ETS
One might speculate that an unidentified flying object (UFO) is flown by an extraterrestrial (ET).
45 6 + 6 : BOXCARS
“Boxcars” is a slang term for two sixes rolled on a pair of dice, particularly in the game of craps. The idea is that the twelve pips on the dice resemble a pair of boxcars on a freight train.
49 Part of N.A.A.C.P.: Abbr. : NATL
The full name of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is remarkable in that it still uses the offensive term “colored people”. The NAACP was founded in 1909, by a group that included suffragette and journalist Mary White Ovington, wealthy socialist William English Walling, and civil rights activist Henry Moskowitz. Another member of the founding group was W. E. B. Du Bois, the first African-American to earn a doctorate at Harvard University. The date chosen for the founding of the NAACP was February 12th, 1909, the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln, the man most visibly associated with the emancipation of African-American slaves.
51 It shares a 44-mile border with Canada : IDAHO
Idaho borders six states, and one Canadian province:
- Montana
- Wyoming
- Nevada
- Utah
- Washington
- Oregon
- British Columbia
52 Bat boy? : ROBIN
Batman is sometimes referred to as the Caped Crusader, Robin as the Boy Wonder, and the pair as the Dynamic Duo.
57 Not streamed, say : ON CD
The compact disc (CD) was developed jointly by Philips and Sony as a medium for storing and playing sound recordings. When the first commercial CD was introduced back in 1982, a CD’s storage capacity was far greater than the amount of data that could be stored on the hard drive of personal computers available at that time.
59 Low-carb kind of diet : KETO
A ketogenic (also “keto”) diet is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet. When a body consumes insufficient carbohydrates to meet the need for energy, then the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies in order to make up the energy deficit. An elevated level of ketone bodies in the bloodstream is known as “ketosis”, a term that gives rise to the name “ketogenic diet”. Medical professionals sometimes prescribe a ketogenic diet in order to control epilepsy in children. A condition of ketosis can reduce the frequency of epileptic seizures.
60 Replace “i.e.” with “e.g.,” e.g. : EDIT
“Id est” is Latin for “that is”, and is often abbreviated to “i.e.” when used in English.
The Latin “exempli gratia” means “for the sake of example”, and is a phrase we often use in English. “Exempli gratia” is almost always shortened to “e.g.”
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Complete List of Clues/Answers
Across
1 The Congressional Black Caucus, for one : BLOC
5 “Do not delay!” : ASAP!
9 Onetime rival of Activision : ATARI
14 Actor Damon or Bomer : MATT
15 One reaching across the aisle, perhaps : BRIDE
16 Fruit with a rind : MELON
17 Faultless, biblically [Spanish] : WITHOUT SIN (“sin” is Spanish for “without”)
19 Backs out unexpectedly : BAILS
20 Bane : SCOURGE
21 Boot camp participant : ENLISTEE
23 Setting for part of “Frankenstein” : LAB
24 Substitute on TV [Czech] : GUEST HOST (“host” is Czech for “guest”)
25 Competitor with variable skills? : MATHLETE
29 Roman god : DIO
30 Filming locale for “the beach” in “Lost” : OAHU
31 Threepio’s companion : ARTOO
34 Pick for a pendant : OPAL
37 With 40-Across, what’s fatefully “cast” in a quote attributed to Julius Caesar [German] : THE …
38 Bakery container [Spanish] : BREAD PAN (“pan” is Spanish for “bread”)
40 See 37-Across : … DIE (“die” is German for “the”)
42 Single numbers? : SOLI
44 Adherent of a philosophy of wisdom, justice, courage and moderation : STOIC
45 “Doin’ the Pigeon” dancer on “Sesame Street” : BERT
46 Attribute aptly hidden in “We’re gods!” : EGO
48 Signs of good health in puppies : WET NOSES
50 Outspoken agitator [Dutch] : FIREBRAND (“brand” is Dutch for “fire”)
55 Phone-y document? : FAX
56 “Aww”-inducing : ADORABLE
57 Baked Scottish snack : OATCAKE
61 The Ingalls family’s little house on the prairie, e.g. : CABIN
62 Like the second word in 17-, 24-, 37-/40-, 38- and 50-Across vis-à-vis the first word : TRANSLATED
64 Believe : THINK
65 Give the boot : EVICT
66 Indian food cooked on a tawa : ROTI
67 Record numbers? : SONGS
68 Comic Chris of “S.N.L.” : REDD
69 Blotch : SPOT
Down
1 M3, X3 and 3 Series, for three : BMWS
2 Like some church matters : LAIC
3 Palindromic guy : OTTO
4 Title monster in an H. P. Lovecraft story : CTHULHU
5 Frida Kahlo creations : ARTE
6 Member of the fam : SIS
7 Final bid? : ADIEU
8 Pasta named for quills : PENNE
9 Drive : AMBITION
10 Cafe analogue : TEA SHOP
11 Bush-nominated Supreme Court justice : ALITO
12 Romeo and Juliet, e.g. : ROLES
13 Map detail : INSET
15 Constant irritant : BUGBEAR
18 Not written down, say : ORAL
22 Tab for a trip : LSD
24 Allude to : GET AT
25 Bon ___ : MOT
26 Some sighs : AAHS
27 One of the Huxtable kids on 1980s-’90s TV : THEO
28 Preceder of cuatro or chic? : TRES
32 Irish actor Chris : O’DOWD
33 Classic TV kid whose name sounds like two letters of the alphabet : OPIE
35 Refreshment suffixes : -ADES
36 Pre-euro money : LIRE
38 Targets for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren : BIG BANKS
39 “Get right on it!” : ACT FAST!
41 Hypothetical entities, for short : ETS
43 Rude looks : LEERING
45 6 + 6 : BOXCARS
47 High ball? : ORB
49 Part of N.A.A.C.P.: Abbr. : NATL
50 Not just beliefs : FACTS
51 It shares a 44-mile border with Canada : IDAHO
52 Bat boy? : ROBIN
53 Make adjustments to : ALTER
54 Audacity : NERVE
57 Not streamed, say : ON CD
58 On : ATOP
59 Low-carb kind of diet : KETO
60 Replace “i.e.” with “e.g.,” e.g. : EDIT
63 Backing : AID
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