Tag: Ones catching rays perhaps crossword clue

Bill’s time: 19m 56s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

7A Moved along (to) : SEGUED

A segue is a transition from one topic to the next. “Segue” is an Italian word that literally means “now follows”. It was first used in musical scores directing the performer to play into the next movement without a break. The oft-used term “segway” is given the same meaning, although the word “segway” doesn’t really exist. It is a misspelling of “segue” that has been popularized by its use as the name of the personal transporter known as a Segway.

13A Modern tech aid whose design was inspired by a Go board : QR CODE

A QR Code (for “Quick Response Code”) is a two-dimensional barcode that is favored over UPC barcodes as it can read more quickly and can store much more information. The QR Code comprises black squares within a square grid on a white background.

16A Insects named for when they emerge : JUNE BUGS

June bugs are beetles that have a life cycle of about a year. Females lay eggs in mid-summer, which hatch in about 18 days. This appearance around June led to the name “June bug”.

19A Dinosaur in Pixar’s “The Good Dinosaur” : ARLO

“The Good Dinosaur” is a Pixar movie that premiered in Paris in November 2015 under the title “Le Voyage d’Arlo”.

20A Four-time N.B.A. All-Star Young : TRAE

Professional basketball player Trae Young was picked up by the Dallas Mavericks in the 2018 NBA draft, and then traded the same day to the Atlanta Hawks. He played with the Hawks until 2026, when he was traded to the Washington Wizards. Young is sometimes known by his nickname “Ice Trae”.

26A Country club? : UNITED NATIONS

The United Nations was established right after the end of WWII, and was a replacement for the ineffective League of Nations that had been formed after the end of WWI. The US was at the forefront of the founding of the United Nations, led by President Franklin Roosevelt. The UN’s headquarters is in international territory in New York. There are three regional UN headquarters, also located in international territory, in Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi.

34A Ball girl : DEB

“Deb” is short for “debutante”, which translates from French as “female beginner”.

35A “Big Brother” host Julie : CHEN

As well as co-anchoring “The Early Show”, Julie Chen Moonves has been host of the American version of “Big Brother” since it graced our screens in the year 2000.

36A Org. concerned with traffic : FAA

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

41A Places to buy buckets, familiarly : KFCS

Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)

42A Common plant for a “plant mom” : FERN

Ferns are unlike mosses in that they have xylem and phloem, making them vascular plants. They also have stems, leaves and roots, but they do not have seeds and flowers, and reproduce using spores. Spores differ from seeds in that they have very little stored food.

43A Long-bodied fish : PIKE

The pike family of fish are freshwater ambush predators with rows of backward-facing teeth from which prey cannot escape. They are often nicknamed “water wolves”, and they are notorious cannibals. When food is scarce, a significant portion of their diet consists of other pike. Yikes!

44A Cookie contents : DATA

When you visit a website, often it will leave a little piece of text information called a “cookie” on your computer. As a cookie is a text file, and not executable, it is relatively harmless. However, as browsers routinely read these text files, cookies can be used by spyware. Basically, the browser can read the cookie and tell a lot about your browsing habits. This can be a good thing, so when you go back to your favorite websites you will be recognized and this can help you. For example, you may have shopped at a site and you’ll find that your shopping cart still has the items you were looking at, often because the items were stored in a cookie. However, they can be “bad” as some spyware uses the cookies to detect your browsing habits and can direct the browser to do things you may not want it to do. I do accept cookies, as they do enhance the browsing experience, but only from sites that I trust …

45A Not together, in a way : A LA CARTE

On a restaurant menu, items that are “à la carte” are priced and ordered separately. A menu marked “table d’hôte” (also called “prix fixe”) is a fixed-price menu with limited choice. “Table d’hôte” translates from French as “table of the host”.

49A Some features of backyard landscaping : GAZEBOS

A gazebo is a roofed structure, often octagonal in shape, that is found mainly in public spaces. Gazebos can be quite small, or can be large enough to perhaps serve as a bandstand. The actual etymology of the term “gazebo” seems to be a bit of a mystery, and there are some misconceptions out there.

Down

1D Brightness measures, in brief : IQS

Although it is correct these days to say that the abbreviation IQ stands for “intelligence quotient”, the term was actually coined by German psychologist William Stern, and so is actually an abbreviation for the German “Intelligenz-Quotient”.

2D Element of a dating profile? : TREE RING

Growth rings can be seen in a horizontal cross section of a tree trunk. These rings are caused by a change in the rate of growth of a tree that comes with the seasons, so the rings are more easily discerned in trees that grow in regions with marked seasonal changes.

3D Potential outcomes : SCENARIOS

A scenario is an outline of the plot of perhaps a novel or play. The term “scenario” can also describe a sequence of hypothetical events.

5D ___ of Solomon, literary collection written in the first or second century : ODES

The “Odes of Solomon” are a group of 42 religious poems that have been attributed to Solomon, one of the Kings of Israel.

8D When much rainy weather occurs in Côte d’Ivoire : ETE

The Republic of Côte d’Ivoire is located in West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea. The country is often referred to in English as “the Ivory Coast”, the direct translation from the French. The official language of the country is French, as for many years it was a French colony.

9D Flip : GO BANANAS

The expression “to go bananas”, meaning “to become excited or angry”, is one that I would have imagined had a clear etymology but that doesn’t seem to be the case. A further surprise is that we’ve only been “going bananas” since the sixties, the days of flower power. One apt theory about the hippy roots of the phrase is that there was an unfounded belief that ingesting roasted banana peels had a similar hallucinogenic effect as magic mushrooms.

10D Seize : USURP

To usurp is to seize and hold by force. The term “usurp” comes to us from Latin via French, from “usus” (a use) and “rapere” (to seize).

11D High-ranking scout : EAGLE

The rank of Eagle Scout was introduced by the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) in 1911. A candidate for Eagle Scout must have first earned a minimum of 21 merit badges, and demonstrate leadership skills and embrace Scout Spirit. Prior to 1911, the highest rank attainable in the BSA was Silver Wolf.

12D Company whose products suck : DYSON

Dyson vacuum cleaners do not use a bag to collect dust. James Dyson invented the first vacuum cleaner to use cyclonic separation in 1979, frustrated at the poor performance of his regular vacuum cleaner. As Dyson cleaners do not use bags, they don’t have to deal with collection bags that are blocked with fine dust particles, even after emptying. Cyclonic separation uses high speed spinning of the dust-containing air so that the dust particles are thrown out of the airflow into a collection bin. We have a Dyson now, and should have bought it years ago …

16D Simple cocktail named for two brands : JACK AND COKE

I used to live in Tennessee, and one weekend took a tour of the Jack Daniel’s distillery in Lynchburg. After watching all the whiskey being produced, we were brought to a room for “refreshments”. We were given lemonade and no samples of the whiskey were offered, because the distillery is located in Moore County, Tennessee, a dry county …

20D Torque symbol, in physics : TAU

Torque can be thought of as a turning force, say the force needed to tighten a bolt or a nut. In physics, torque is represented by the Greek letter tau.

21D Bit of nonsense writing that typically gets a laugh : MAD LIB

Mad Libs is a word game, one mostly played by children in America. The idea is that one player provides a list of words which are then inserted into blank spots in a story, usually with hilarious results (they say!).

24D Ball girls : BELLES

A beau (plural “beaux”) is the boyfriend of a belle, a young lady. “Beau” and “belle” are the masculine and feminine forms of the French word for “handsome, beautiful”.

25D Leap day baby, e.g. : PISCES

The twelfth astrological sign of the zodiac is called Pisces, and is named for the Pisces constellation. “Pisces” is the Latin word for “fish” in the plural (singular “piscis”).

Leap day is February 29th in a leap year, which is usually a year that is divisible by 4. My baby brother was born on February 29th, in 1968. A woman in Utah gave birth on February 29th in 2004, on February 29th in 2008, and once more on February 29th, 2012. That’s in the Guinness Book of World Records …

31D Act like yourself, perhaps? : DO A CAMEO

Even in my day, a cameo role was more than just a short appearance in a movie (or other artistic piece). For the appearance to be a cameo, the actor had to play themself, and be instantly recognizable. With this meaning it’s easy to see the etymology of the term, as a cameo brooch is one with the recognizable carving of the silhouette of a person. Nowadays, a cameo is any minor role played by a celebrity or famous actor, regardless of the character played.

33D Nasty ___ (noted rap moniker) : NAS

Rapper Nas used to go by an earlier stage name “Nasty Nas”, and before that by his real name “Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones”. Nas released his first album “Illmatic” in 1994, and inventively titled his fifth studio album “Stillmatic”, released in 2001.

37D Not in the minority? : OF AGE

When used in the context of age, “minority” and “majority” refer to legal status. A “minor” is a person who is under the age of legal adulthood, typically 18, and therefore under the legal authority of their parents or guardians. “Majority” refers to the state of having reached the age of legal adulthood, granting individuals full legal rights and responsibilities.

39D Fidget spinners or Angry Birds, once : CRAZE

A fidget spinner is a toy that supposedly can be used for stress relief. Sales of fidget spinners really took off in 2017, although versions of the toy existed back in the early nineties.

Angry Birds is a video game developed for smartphones. It is one the most downloaded games, rivaling the popularity of games like Tetris and Pac-Man. There is a whole series of Angry Birds games now, including Angry Birds Rio, Angry Birds Star Wars and Angry Birds Transformers.

41D Character played by Rashida Jones on “The Office” : KAREN

Actress Rashida Jones is famous for playing lead characters on “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation”. She also made an award-winning 2018 documentary titled “Quincy”, which is about the life of Rashida’s father, record producer and singer Quincy Jones.

43D Set piece : PROP

We use the word “props” for objects that are used by actors on stage during a play. The term is a shortening of the older term “properties”, which was used with the same meaning up through the 19th century.

44D Longtime U.F.C. C.E.O. ___ White : DANA

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is the largest promoter in the world of mixed martial arts (MMA) competitions. I think the idea is that competitors fight each other in various disciplines to see who is the “best of the best” …

46D Aladdin’s sidekick : ABU

Abu is a monkey in the Disney production of “Aladdin”. The character is based on Abu, a thief in the 1940 film “The Thief of Bagdad”.

48D Lead-in to “lab” in the name of an S&P 500 company : ECO-

Ecolab is a company that specializes in water treatment. It was founded in 1923 as Economics Laboratory, with the company’s first product being a cleaning solution for carpets in hotels.