Tag: Little hopper crossword clue

Bill’s time: 5m 01s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

9 Loser to scissors, winner over rock : PAPER

Rock-paper-scissors is a hand game played by two people, at least here in North America. Back in Ireland we called the game “scissors-paper-stone”, and another name encountered around the English-speaking world is “roshambo”. The game is often used as a way to choose between two options or two individuals.

16 Future fungus : SPORE

Spores are produced by many bacteria, fungi and non-flowering plants. A spore is a reproductive body encased in a protective shell that is highly resistant to damage, and resistant to heat in particular.

17 Tim Duncan’s longtime N.B.A. team : SAN ANTONIO SPURS

Tim Duncan is a professional basketball player from St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. Duncan was a natural swimmer, with his eyes on the 1992 Olympic Games. He was forced to turn his attention to basketball when Hurricane Hugo destroyed St. Croix’s only Olympic-sized pool in 1989.

23 Metaphor for some special-interest government spending : PORK BARREL

Pork-barrel politics have been around for a long time. The term “pork barrel” originated in 1863 in a story by Edward Everett Hale called “The Children of the Public”. Hale used the phrase in a positive way, describing any public spending by the government for the benefit of citizens. By the 1870s the term “pork” had negative connotations, with references in the press to “pork-barrel bills” in Congress. Nowadays “pork” really applies to any government project designed to benefit a relatively small group of citizens (usually potential voters for a particular politician) with the bill being paid by the citizenry as a whole.

27 Dust ___ (tiny critter) : MITE

According to the American Lung Association, about four out of five homes in the US have dust mites in at least one bed. Houses with carpets are more likely to have dust mites, as are homes in humid parts of the country. Dust mites can be eradicated by exposing them to a temperature over 105 degrees C in a clothes dryer.

28 Taylor Swift’s “We ___ Never Ever Getting Back Together” : ARE

“We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” is a 2012 co-written and recorded by Taylor Swift. Apparently, the lyrics refer to the singer’s frustration with a former lover who wanted to get back together with her. When it was released, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” became the fastest selling single in digital history.

29 Little hopper : TOAD

Toads are a type of frog. The main difference between them is that toads have dry, warty skin, while frogs have smooth, moist skin.

30 Sudden overwhelming fear : PANIC

In Greek mythology, Pan was a lecherous god who was part-man and part-goat, and one who fell in love with Echo the mountain nymph. Echo refused Pan’s advances so that he became very angry. Pan’s anger created a “panic” (a word derived from the name “Pan”) and a group of shepherds were driven to kill Echo.

31 Energy drinks that “give you wings” : RED BULLS

Red Bull is a drink from Austria that was introduced in 1987. Red Bull is the most popular “energy drink” in the world. There was some controversy in 2009 when it was discovered that Red Bull imported from Austria contained trace amounts of cocaine.

40 Titular soccer coach on a hit Apple TV+ series : TED LASSO

“Ted Lasso” is a marvelous sports-comedy TV show about an American college football coach who moves to the UK to manage an English soccer team. The title character is played very admirably by Jason Sudeikis. Sudeikis first played Lasso in a series of TV commercials commissioned to promote NBC’s coverage of the British Premier League. The character became so popular that he inspired a whole TV series. Great stuff, and highly recommended …

45 Greek salad cheese : FETA

Feta is a Greek cheese made from sheep’s milk, or a mixture of sheep and goat’s milk. The cheese is salted and cured in a brine solution for several months before it is eaten.

47 Shapes of rainbows : ARCS

Sunlight reflected by airborne water droplets can produce rainbows. The water droplets act as little prisms, dispersing the white light into its constituent colors. Sometimes we see double rainbows. If we look carefully, we can see that the order of the colors in the first and second arcs is reversed.

51 “I did NOT need to know that!” : TMI!

Too much information (TMI)

53 Sound in a “Batman” fight : POW!

The television show “Batman” aired from 1966-1968. Burt Ward played Robin opposite Adam West’s Batman. Supposedly, Burt Ward was offered the part taken by Dustin Hoffman in “The Graduate”, but Ward couldn’t get out of his contract for the “Batman” television series. Holy xxxx, Batman!

54 “Done this before, you know!” … or a hint to the last words of 17-, 23-, 31-, 40- and 48-Across : NOT MY FIRST RODEO!

“Not my first rodeo” means “not the first time I’ve done this”. The phrase started to be used after country singer Vern Gosdin released the song “This Ain’t My First Rodeo” in 1990. Gosdin said that he’d first heard the idiom from a workman who added an extra room over his garage.

64 Certain risqué message : SEXT

Sexting (a portmanteau of “sex” and “texting”) is the sending of explicit dialog and images between cell phones. The term “sexting” was coined by the UK’s “Sunday Telegraph Magazine” in a 2005 article.

Down

2 Spy org. : CIA

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the successor to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed during WWII. The CIA was chartered by the National Security Act of 1947. The organization is often referred to familiarly as “the Company”.

3 Like professors with job security : TENURED

A job in a university that is described as “tenure-track” is one that can lead to a tenured position. A tenured position is a “job for life”. A person with tenure can only be dismissed for cause.

6 Sign before Virgo : LEO

Most of the signs of the classical Greek zodiac are animals. This fact relates to the etymology of the term “zodiac”, which comes from the Greek “zodiakos kyklos”, literally “circle of animals”.

11 Canadian fries-and-gravy dish : POUTINE

Poutine is a dish that originated in rural Quebec in the late fifties. It is made with french fries covered in a brown gravy sauce, all topped with cheese curds.

13 Aretha Franklin hit ranked #1 on a Rolling Stone magazine “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list : RESPECT

“Respect” is a song by Otis Redding, and one that he recorded himself in 1965. It became a hit when Aretha Franklin made her famous cover version in 1967. The Redding and Franklin versions have different storylines though, and different musical “feels”.

25 Book of maps : ATLAS

The first modern atlas was published in 1570 by Abraham Ortelius, a Flemish cartographer. It was called “Theatrum Orbis Terrarum” (Theater of the World).

27 Island nation south of Sicily : MALTA

The island state of Malta is relatively small (122 square miles), but its large number of inhabitants makes it one of the most densely populated countries in Europe. Malta’s strategic location has made it a prized possession for the conquering empires of the world. Most recently it was part of the British Empire and was an important fleet headquarters. Malta played a crucial role for the Allies during WWII as it was located very close to the Axis shipping lanes in the Mediterranean. The Siege of Malta lasted from 1940 to 1942, a prolonged attack by the Italians and Germans on the RAF and Royal Navy, and the people of Malta. When the siege was lifted, King George VI awarded the George Cross to the people of Malta collectively in recognition of their heroism and devotion to the Allied cause. The George Cross can still be seen on the Maltese flag, even though Britain granted Malta independence in 1964.

30 Banana discard : PEEL

The banana is actually a berry, botanically speaking. And, bananas don’t really grow on trees. The “trunk” of the banana plant is in fact a pseudostem. The pseudostem is a false stem comprising rolled bases of leaves, and it can grow to 2 or 3 meters tall.

33 Addresses with links, for short : URLS

Uniform resource locator (URL)

38 Estrogen or testosterone : HORMONE

The primary female sex hormone is estrogen (also “oestrogen”). The term “estrogen” comes from the Greek “oistros” meaning “verve, inspiration” and the suffix “-gen” meaning “producer of”.

Testosterone is a primary sex hormone. It is a steroid that is secreted by the testicles in males and the ovaries in females. The levels of testosterone are 7-8 times higher in adult males than in females, and so it is often referred to as “the male sex hormone”.

40 Source of an extract used in aromatherapy : TEA TREE

Tea tree oil is an essential oil that is extracted from the leaves of several species known as “tea tree”, all of which are in the myrtle family. The oil is used as a folk remedy for several skin conditions, including acne, nail fungus and athlete’s foot and dandruff. We are warned that tree oil is poisonous when taken internally, and may cause skin irritation when used externally.

41 Entrant in a Westminster Kennel Club event : SHOW DOG

The first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show was held in 1877, which makes it the second oldest sporting event in the country (narrowly beaten out by the Kentucky Derby that was first run in 1875). The show was originally limited to gun dogs and was established by a group of hunters who routinely met at the Westminster Hotel in Manhattan, New York.

48 Half-___ (rhyming coffee order) : CAF

Caffeine is a naturally occurring stimulant that is found in several plants. The chemical serves as a natural pesticide by paralyzing and killing certain insects that would otherwise feed on the plant. Caffeine is the most widely consumed psychoactive drug that is consumed by humans across the world.

50 “___ lips sink ships” : LOOSE

“Loose lips sink ships” is used as a warning that unguarded talk can be dangerous. The phrase originated during WWII when it was coined by the US War Advertising Council for use on posters.