Tag: One of six supposedly for a seer crossword clue

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A What a leaky faucet has : DRIP

The common “faucet” in an American house is almost always referred to as a “tap” on the other side of the pond.

14A Classical Persian poet : RUMI

Rumi was a poet, theologian and mystic who lived and worked in the 13th century, towards the end of the Islamic Golden Age. His best known work is a six-volume poem titled “Spiritual Couplets” in English, which is sometimes referred to as “the Quran in Persian”.

15A Nebraska home of Creighton University : OMAHA

Creighton University is a private Jesuit school in Omaha, Nebraska that was founded in 1878. Originally called Creighton College, it was funded with a bequest of $100,000 from Mary Lucretia Creighton in honor of her husband, banker Edward Creighton.

17A Intl. oil group : OPEC

The OPEC cartel was formally established in 1960 and has been headquartered in Vienna since 1965. The US is one of the big three oil producers in the world (along with Russia and Saudi Arabia). One reason America isn’t in OPEC is that, prior to 2019, we imported more oil than we exported. Then, of course, there are US federal antitrust laws …

18A Like streakers : NAKED

People have been running around naked for an awfully long time, but the application of the word “streaking” to the phenomenon only dates back to the mid-seventies. A journalist was reporting on a mass nude run of 533 people at the University of Maryland in 1974, and used the words “they are streaking (i.e. moving quickly) past me right now. It’s an incredible sight!”. The Associated Press picked up the story the next day, and interpreted “streaking” as the term to describe “running naked”, and we’ve been using it that way ever since.

19A Deep blue : NAVY

Navy blue is a dark blue shade that was named for the color of uniforms worn by officers in the British Royal Navy as early as 1748. When the color’s name first took on the association with uniforms in the early 1800s, it was known as “marine blue”, but soon changed to “navy blue”.

23A Urged (on) : EGGED

The verb “to edge” has been used to mean to incite, to urge on, from the 16th century. Somewhere along the way “edge” was mistakenly replaced with “egg”, giving us our term “to egg on” meaning “to goad”.

24A One of six, supposedly, for a seer : SENSE

The so-called sixth sense is extrasensory perception (ESP). It is also referred to as second sight.

25A “___ Were a Rich Man” : IF I

“If I Were a Rich Man” is a wonderful song from the 1964 musical “Fiddler on the Roof”. The musical is based on stories about “Tevye the Dairyman” by Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem. The song’s title is inspired by a specific Sholem Aleichem monologue entitled “If I Were a Rothschild”, a reference to the wealthy Rothschild family.

30A Who said “Revolutions are the locomotives of history” : MARX

Karl Marx was a German philosopher and revolutionary who helped develop the principles of modern communism and socialism. Marx argued that feudal society created internal strife due to class inequalities which led to its destruction and replacement by capitalism. He further argued that the inequalities created in a capitalist society create tensions that will also lead to its self-destruction. His thesis was that the inevitable replacement of capitalism was a classless (and stateless) society, which he called pure communism.

34A Pen points : NIBS

“Nib” is a Scottish variant of the Old English word “neb”, with both meaning “beak of a bird”. This usage of “nib” as a beak dates back to the 14th century, with “nib” describing the tip of a pen or quill coming a little later, in the early 1600s.

44A Sound in polka music : OOMPAH

The polka is a dance from central Europe, one that originated in Bohemia in the mid-1800s. It’s thought that “polka” comes from a Czech word meaning “little half”, reflecting the little half-steps included in the basic dance.

46A Strategic disk game played on a vertical board : CONNECT FOUR

Connect Four is an interesting two-player game in which opponents drop colored discs into a vertical grid. The objective is to make straight lines of discs of one color, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Disappointingly, the player who goes first can always win the game by playing the right moves.

50A Music genre for James Brown : FUNK

Funk is a genre of music that originated in the late sixties with African American musicians, and has been described as a mix of soul, jazz and R&B. One of the more famous names associated with funk was James Brown.

Singer James Brown was often referred to as “The Godfather of Soul” and sometimes “Mr. Dynamite”. Brown was born in Barnwell, South Carolina and had a rough and impoverished upbringing. He lived for some years in his aunt’s house which she ran as a brothel, and when he was sixteen he was convicted of armed robbery and was sent to reform school. While in reform school, Brown was noticed by the R&B star Bobby Byrd, who took him under his wing. Byrd helped secure the young man an early release, and thereafter Brown turned his energies to music.

51A Device once used with a Blockbuster rental : VCR

Blockbuster was an international chain of home video rental stores founded in Dallas in 1985. In 2014, then owned by Dish Networks, Blockbuster shut down operations. However, one franchised store remains open to this day, in Bend, Oregon. The Bend Blockbuster has become a tourist attraction, and the store sells merchandise using the Blockbuster name. It has been the subject of a recent documentary, has hosted sleepovers via Airbnb, and even has a craft beer that uses its name.

52A Mission-driven grps., often : NGOS

Non-governmental organization (NGO)

55A Who said “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” : JESUS

The Sermon on the Mount is a collection of teachings of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. One famous section of the discourse is known as the Beatitudes. The eight Beatitudes are:

• … Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
• … Blessed are those who mourn: for they will be comforted
• … Blessed are the meek: for they will inherit the earth
• … Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they will be filled
• … Blessed are the merciful: for they will be shown mercy
• … Blessed are the pure in heart: for they will see God
• … Blessed are the peacemakers: for they will be called children of God
• … Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

57A May honoree : MOM

Note the official punctuation in “Mother’s Day”, even though one might think it should be “Mothers’ Day”. President Wilson and Anna Jarvis, who created the tradition, specifically wanted Mother’s Day to honor the mothers within each family and not just “mothers” in general, so they went with the “Mother’s Day” punctuation.

59A Animal with a “mask” : RACCOON

The raccoon is native to North America. In captivity, raccoons can live to over 20 years of age, but in the wild they only live two or three years. The main causes for the shorter lifespan are hunting and road traffic.

65A Peeved : IN A SNIT

The exact etymology of “snit”, meaning “fit of temper”, isn’t really known. The term was first used in print in the play “Kiss the Boys Goodbye” by Clare Boothe Luce, which dates back to the 1930s and is set in the American South.

Down

2D Currency in Mumbai : RUPEE

The rupee is a unit of currency used in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan. The term “rupee” comes from the Sanskrit word “rupya”, which once meant “stamped, impressed” and then “coin”.

Mumbai is the most populous city in India, and one of the most populous cities in the world. The name of the city was changed from Bombay to Mumbai in 1995. It is the financial capital of India and is home to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the oldest stock exchange in Asia.

4D Interception returned for a touchdown : PICK-SIX

“Pick-six” is a football term, an interception returned by the defensive team for a touchdown. The “pick” is the interception, and the “six” is the number of points awarded for a touchdown.

5D Start of the workweek: Abbr. : MON

The day of the week called Monday is named for the Moon. “Monday” comes from the Old English “monenday” meaning “day of the moon”.

8D Newspaper in New York, L.A. or Seattle, colloquially : THE TIMES

“The New York Times” (NYT) has been published since 1851, and is sometimes referred to as “the Gray Lady”. These days a viable alternative to buying the paper is to read the news online. NYTimes.com is the most popular online newspaper website in the country.

The “Los Angeles Times” newspaper started out life in 1881 as the “Los Angeles Daily Times”. The paper has a turbulent history, especially in the early 1900s when management and unions were at loggerheads. In 1910, two union members bombed the “Los Angeles Times” building causing a fire that killed 21 newspaper employees.

“The Seattle Times” newspaper was founded in 1891, and has the largest circulation in the Pacific Northwest. It was purchased in 1896 by teacher and attorney Alden J. Blethen, and the Blethen family have maintained a controlling interest in the newspaper to this day.

10D Surf with one’s toes off the front of the board : HANG TEN

“To hang ten” is a verb used in surfing. A surfer hangs ten when he or she is able to walk forward and hang ten toes over the nose of the board because the back of the board is covered by the waves being ridden.

13D Joseph called “Father of the Symphony” : HAYDN

Josef Haydn was an Austrian composer, often called the “Father of the Symphony” due to his prolific output of symphonies that helped define the form. This is one of the reasons that he was known, even in his own lifetime, as “Papa Haydn”. Haydn was also the father figure among “the big three” composers of the Classical Period: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Haydn was a good friend to Mozart, and a teacher of Beethoven.

21D Coin dated with the year of its country’s imperial era : YEN

The Japanese yen (JPY) is the third-most traded currency in the world, after the US dollar and the euro.

29D Unapproachable : ALOOF

I suppose one might guess from the feel of the word “aloof” that it has nautical roots. Originally “aloof” meant “to windward” and was the opposite of “alee”. A helmsman might be instructed to stay aloof, to steer the boat into the weather to keep a distance from a lee-shore. It is from this sense of maintaining a distance that aloof came to mean “distant” in terms of personality. Interesting, huh …?

30D Newsstand purchase, informally : MAG

The word “magazine” was originally used to denote a place for storing goods, particularly military arms and ammunition, back in the late 1500s. This usage was extended to include packs of ammunition attached to automatic weapons. The first use of “magazine” in the sense of a periodical or journal dates back to 1731, with the publication of “Gentleman’s Magazine”. “Magazine” had come to mean a printed list of military stores, and the idea was that the new periodical was to be a “storehouse” of information.

36D Arthur of “The Golden Girls” : BEA

Bea Arthur is an American actress and comedian who rose to fame in the 1970s with her iconic roles in the hit TV shows “Maude” and “The Golden Girls”. Prior to launching her acting career, Arthur served in the US military. In 1943, at the age of 21, she joined the US Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, where she worked as a typist and truck driver.

“The Golden Girls” is a sitcom that originally aired in the eighties and nineties. The show features Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty as four older women who share a house in Miami.

40D Midnight’s opposite : NOON

Our word “noon”, meaning “midday”, comes from the Latin “nona hora” that translates as “ninth hour”. Back in ancient Rome, the “ninth hour” was three in the afternoon. Over the centuries, traditions such as church prayers and “midday” meals shifted from 3 p.m. to 12 p.m., and so “noon” became understood as 12 noon.

45D Starbucks keepsake, perhaps : MUG

Starbucks is a coffee company based in Seattle, Washington. It is the largest coffeehouse company in the world and has almost 40,000 stores. In the 1990s, Starbucks was opening one new store every single day! Starbucks is named after the chief mate on the Pequod in Herman Melville’s book “Moby-Dick”.

50D Swiss currency : FRANC

Not only is the Swiss franc legal tender in Switzerland, it is also the money used in Liechtenstein and the Italian exclave of Campione d’Italia.

53D How you may feel after a workout vis-à-vis before : SORER

We can use the French phrase “vis-à-vis” as a preposition meaning “compared with”. When used as an adverb or adjective, it means “face-to-face”, which is a more literal translation from French.

61D Yoko who participated in a bed-in : ONO

John Lennon and Yoko Ono married at the height of the Vietnam War in 1969. The couple decided to use the inevitable publicity surrounding their wedding and honeymoon to promote peace in the world. They honeymooned in the Presidential Suite of the Amsterdam Hilton, inviting the world’s press to join them and to witness their “bed-in”. They spent the week talking about peace, and an end to war. The marriage and bed-in is chronicled by the Beatles in their song “The Ballad of John and Yoko”. A few weeks after the marriage, Lennon adopted the additional middle name “Ono” by deed poll.

63D ___ tai : MAI

The mai tai cocktail is strongly associated with the Polynesian islands, but the drink was supposedly invented in 1944 in Trader Vic’s restaurant in Oakland, California. One recipe is 6 parts white rum, 3 parts orange curaçao, 3 parts orgeat syrup, 1 part rock candy syrup, 2 parts fresh lime juice, all mixed with ice and then a float added of 6 parts dark rum. “Maita’i” is the Tahitian word for “good”. The mai tai was officially designated as the official cocktail of Oakland in 2024.

64D Bank with a lion in its logo : ING

ING is a huge Dutch banking institution created via a merger in 1991. The company headquarters is in a spectacular building in Amsterdam called simply ING House. “ING” stands for Internationale Nederlanden Groep.