Tag: Sweetie to Brits crossword clue

Bill’s time: 5m 26s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10A Egyptian cobra : ASP

The Egyptian cobra (Naja haje) is also known as the asp. That said, the term “asp” can apply to several species of snake, including the Egyptian cobra. Legend has it that Cleopatra committed suicide by enticing an asp to bite her. If that’s true, then that asp was probably an Egyptian cobra.

15A Word before Kim, Wayne or Nas X in hip-hop names : LI’L

“Lil’ Kim” is the stage name of rap artist Kimberly Denise Jones from Brooklyn, New York. Lil’ Kim spent a year in jail in 2005 for lying to a jury in a case about a shooting.

“Lil Wayne” is the stage name used by rap artist Dwayne Carter, Jr. from New Orleans.

“Lil Nas X” is the stage name of rapper Montero Lamar Hill. He was born and raised just outside of Atlanta. His first hit was “Old Town Road”, which is classified as country rap.

17A George Gershwin’s lyricist brother : IRA

Ira Gershwin was the lyricist who worked with his brother George to create such American classics as the songs “I Got Rhythm” and “Someone to Watch Over Me”, as well as the opera “Porgy and Bess”. After George Gershwin died, Ira continued to create great music, and worked with the likes of Jerome Kern and Kurt Weill.

31A ___-Magnon (early human) : CRO

Remains of early man, dating back to 35,000 years ago, were found in Abri de Cro-Magnon in southwest France, giving the name to those early humans. Cro-Magnon remains are among the oldest human relics that have been discovered in Europe.

41A Insect with pincers : EARWIG

The insect known as the earwig may have gotten its name from the mistaken belief that it burrowed into the human brain via the ear canal in order to lay its eggs in the brain.

42A X, for a sorority : CHI

The letter chi is the 22nd letter in the Greek alphabet, and the one that looks like our Roman letter X.

45A Decorations around the United Nations : FLAGS

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.

46A “Sauer” hot dog topping : KRAUT

“Sauerkraut” translates from German as “sour herb” or “sour cabbage”. During WWI, sauerkraut producers changed its name in order to distance their product from the “enemy”. They called it “Liberty cabbage”.

47A 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”.

48A Mascara coats one : LASH

Variants of mascara have been around a long time, and certainly there was a similar substance in use in ancient Egypt. “Mascara” is a Spanish word meaning “stain, mask”.

49A Full of know-how : SAVVY

The term “savvy”, meaning “understanding”, comes from the French “savez-vous?”. The French phrase translates as “do you know?”

Down

3D Chinese revolutionary : MAO

Mao Zedong (also “Mao Tse-tung”) was born in 1893 in the Hunan Province of China. As Mao was the son of a peasant farmer, his prospects for education were limited. Indeed he left school at age 13 to work on the family farm but did eventually get to secondary school in Changsha, the provincial capital. In the years following, Mao continued his education in Beijing and actually turned down an opportunity to study in France.

5D Cookware coating : TEFLON

Teflon is a brand name for the polymer called PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene). Teflon is used as a coating for nonstick pans, a lubricant in machinery and as a graft material in surgery. DuPont discovered PTFE in 1938, and registered Teflon as a trademark in 1945.

6D National museum in Madrid : PRADO

The Museo del Prado is in Madrid, the capital of Spain, and has one of the finest art collections in the world. The gallery’s most famous work is “Las Meninas” by Velázquez.

7D Trunk for a sculptor to sculpt : TORSO

“Torso” (plural “torsi”) is an Italian word meaning “trunk of a statue”. We imported this term into English to describe the main part of the human body, or a figure lacking its appendages.

9D …—… in Morse : SOS!

Samuel Morse was a very accomplished and reputable painter (he was engaged to paint a portrait of President John Adams, for example). In 1825 Morse was in Washington working on a commissioned painting when he received a one-line letter by horse-messenger telling him that his wife was ill. He left immediately for his home in New Haven, Connecticut but by the time that Morse arrived his wife had already died and had been buried. This single event spurred him to move from painting to the development of a rapid means of long distance communication, leading to the single-wire telegraph and Morse code.

10D Cover story, in court : ALIBI

“Alibi” is the Latin word for “elsewhere” as in, “I claim that I was ‘elsewhere’ when the crime was committed, I have an ‘alibi’”.

11D Sound that warns of a tornado : SIREN

Although a tornado (plural “tornadoes, tornados”) can be encountered in many locations around the world, it is most likely to be experienced in North America, and particularly in “Tornado Alley” in the central US. The Canadian Tornado Alley in southern Canada is where one is second most likely in the world to encounter a tornado.

21D Many a craft beer, for short : IPA

India pale ale (IPA)

23D Filtered food for whales : KRILL

Krill are small, shrimp-like crustaceans that live in the oceans. Krill feed on plankton, and in turn, krill are the main part of the diet of larger animals such as whales, seals and penguins. There’s an awful lot of krill in the world, an estimated 500,000,000 tonnes of it. That’s about twice the biomass of humans on the planet!

26D Matador charger : TORO

The term “torero” is used to describe all bullfighters. The term “matador” is reserved for the bullfighter whose job is to make the final kill. Aptly enough, “matador” is Spanish for “killer”.

27D Big U.S./Canada falls : NIAGARA

The mighty Niagara River flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, and forms part of the border between the US and Canada. The river is only about 35 miles long, so some describe it as a “strait”. It has a drop in elevation of 325 feet along its length, with 165 feet of that drop taking place at Niagara Falls.

29D (The) boondocks : STICKS

“Boondocks” (often shortened to “boonies”) is a term used in North America for a remote, usually rural area. Often the term is used derogatively, implying that a remote location is unsophisticated. “Boondocks” was first used by American soldiers stationed in the Philippines in the early 1900s. The word evolved from the Tagalog “bundok” meaning “mountain”.

30D Pasta sauce brand : RAGU

The Ragú brand of pasta sauce was introduced in 1937. The name ”Ragù” is the Italian word for a sauce used to dress pasta, however the spelling is a little off in the name of the sauce. In Italian, the word is “Ragù” with a grave accent over the “u”, but if you look at a jar of the sauce on the supermarket shelf it is spelled “Ragú” on the label, with an acute accent. Sometimes I think we just don’t try …

31D PlayStation maker : SONY

Sony introduced the PlayStation line of video game consoles in 1994.

39D Golfer McIlroy : RORY

Rory McIlroy is a very successful golfer from Northern Ireland. He became a world number one at a relatively young age, so folks can’t help but compare him to Tiger Woods. He was the first European to win three different majors. Along with Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and Jordan Spieth, McIlroy is one of only four people to win three majors by the age of 25.

43D Grp. for the Jets and Jaguars : AFC

American Football Conference (AFC)

Just like the New York Giants, the New York Jets are based in New Jersey, headquartered in Florham Park. The Jets and the Giants have a unique arrangement in the NFL in that the two teams share MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Jets were an AFL charter team, formed in 1959 as the Titans of New York. The Titans changed their name to the Jets in 1963.

The Jacksonville Jaguars have been in the NFL since 1995. The team was named four years earlier, via a fan contest in 1991. The contest was a step in the plans to bring an NFL team to the city. The fans seemed to like the alliteration of “Jacksonville Jaguars”, or perhaps wanted to honor the oldest living jaguar in North America, then a resident of the Jacksonville Zoo.

45D Bathroom, informally : LAV

Our word “lavatory” (sometimes “lav”) originally referred to a washbasin, and comes from the Latin “lavatorium”, a place for washing. In the 1600s, “lavatory” came to mean a washroom, and in the 1920s a toilet.