Tag: Symbol of protection crossword clue

Bill’s time: 9m 20s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Punk rocker Joan : JETT

“Joan Jett” is the stage name of rock guitarist and singer Joan Marie Larkin. She is best known as a member of the band Joan Jett & the Blackhearts that formed in 1979.

17A Tibetan title : LAMA

“Lama” is a Tibetan word meaning “chief, high priest”.

22A Symbol of protection : ARK

The term “ark”, when used with reference to Noah, is a translation of the Hebrew word “tebah”. The word “tebah” is also used in the Bible for the basket in which Moses was placed by his mother when she floated him down the Nile. It seems that the word “tebah” doesn’t mean “boat”, nor does it mean “basket”. Rather, a more appropriate translation is “life-preserver” or “life-saver”. So, Noah’s ark was Noah’s life-preserver during the flood.

23A Part of a window above the apron : SILL

“Sill plate”, or simply “sill”, is an architectural term describing a bottom horizontal member to which vertical members are attached. Window sills and door sills are specific sill plates found at the bottoms of windows and door openings.

35A Boxing champ Laila : ALI

Laila Ali is the daughter of the great Muhammad Ali and is a very capable boxer in her own right. Laila’s professional record is an impressive 24 wins, including 21 knockouts. Now retired, she never lost a fight, and nor did she ever draw. One of those victories was against Jackie Frazier-Lyde, daughter of her father’s nemesis Joe Frazier. Laila is not a bad dancer either, coming in third place in the fourth season of “Dancing with the Stars”.

36A Subject of the Edward Snowden leaks, in brief : NSA

Edward Snowden is a former NSA contractor who leaked several top secret NSA documents to the media beginning in June 2013. After disclosing his name as the source of the leaks, Snowden tried to seek asylum in Ecuador. While traveling to Ecuador he had a layover in Moscow. While in Moscow, the US government revoked his passport, which effectively left him stranded in the transit area of Moscow Airport. The Russian government granted him permanent residency in 2020 and he officially became a Russian citizen in September 2022.

40A Australian actor Eric : BANA

Eric Bana is an Australian actor who enjoyed a successful career in his home country before breaking into Hollywood playing an American Delta Force sergeant in “Black Hawk Down”. A couple of years later he played the lead in Ang Lee’s 2003 movie “Hulk”, the role of Dr Bruce Banner. More recently he played the Romulan villain Nero, in the 2009 “Star Trek” movie.

44A “___ Father …” : OUR

Our Father … (“Pater noster” in Latin) are the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer, which is probably the best-known prayer in the Christian tradition.

46A Concert souvenir : TEE

A souvenir is a memento, a token of remembrance. We imported “souvenir” from French, in which language it has the same meaning. The term comes from the Latin “subvenire” meaning “to come to mind”, or literally “to come up”.

47A River to the Rio Grande : PECOS

The Pecos River rises north of the village of Pecos in New Mexico, and flows almost a thousand miles before entering the Rio Grande near Del Rio, Texas. Arguably, the Pecos is the only river in the world that crosses itself. In the late 1800s, settlers near Carlsbad, New Mexico built a series of dams and canals to irrigate the semi-arid Pecos Valley. The irrigation project included a large wooden flume that in its heyday carried 9,000 gallons of water per second, 145 feet above the river. Apparently, that water originated in the Pecos, hence the claim that the Pecos “crossed itself”. I’m a bit skeptical of the physics behind that claim though …

52A “___ of the D’Urbervilles” : TESS

In Thomas Hardy’s novel “Tess of the d’Urbervilles”, the heroine and title character is Tess Durbeyfield. Her father is an uneducated peasant and when he hears that his name is a corruption of the noble name of “D’Urberville”, the news goes to his head.

53A Big name in London : BEN

“Big Ben” is the name commonly used for the large bell in the Clock Tower (“Elizabeth Tower”, since 2012) of the Palace of Westminster (aka “Houses of Parliament”). Big Ben’s official name is the Great Bell, and there is some debate about the origins of the nickname. It may be named after Sir Benjamin Hall who supervised the bell’s installation, or perhaps the English heavyweight champion of the day Benjamin Caunt. Big Ben fell silent in 2017 to make way for five years of maintenance and repair work to the clock’s mechanism and the tower.

56A Servant of Sauron in “The Lord of the Rings” : ORC

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”, Sauron is the actual “Lord of the Rings”. He was the Dark Lord Morgoth’s trusted lieutenant.

67A Noted Punxsutawney resident : PHIL

Punxsutawney is a borough in Pennsylvania that is located about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Punxsutawney Phil is the famous groundhog that lives in the area. Phil comes out of his hole on February 2 each year and if he sees his shadow he goes back into his hole predicting six more weeks of winter weather. February 2 is known as “Groundhog Day”.

Down

1D Part of a royal flush : JACK

The poker hand called a royal flush is the highest-ranking hand possible. It consists of a run of 10, jack, queen, king and ace, with all in the same suit.

2D Raison d’___ : ETRE

“Raison d’être” is a French phrase meaning “reason for existence”.

4D “Eww … just eww” : TMI

Too much information! (TMI!)

7D Reproductive option, for short : IVF

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the process in which egg cells are fertilized by sperm cells outside of the body in vitro. The phrase “in vitro” translates from Latin as “in glass”. The process is usually carried out in a glass culture dish.

8D Some paragraphs in playbills : BIOS

I get quite a kick out of reading the bios in “Playbill” as some of them can be really goofy and entertaining. “Playbill” started off in 1884 in New York as an in-house publication for just one theater on 21st St. You can’t see any decent-sized production these days anywhere in the United States without being handed a copy of “Playbill”.

10D High-end camera, for short : SLR

Single-lens reflex (SLR) camera

13D Spot to play baccarat : CASINO

Baccarat, in all of its three variants, is a relatively simple casino card game. It is the favored game of chance for James Bond 007, and it looks so cool when he plays it! Banco!

16D Gas units : GALLONS

The name of our fluid measure called a “gallon” ultimately comes from the Medieval Latin term “galleta” meaning “bucket, pail”.

26D Formed from molten lava : IGNEOUS

The three main classes of rocks are sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic. Igneous rocks are formed from solidified lava or magma. They are commonly used in construction materials, such as paving stones and countertops, due to their durability and resistance to weathering.

29D You can request a new one on religious grounds if it contains “666”: Abbr. : SSN

A Social Security Number (SSN) is divided into three parts, i.e AAA-GG-SSSS. Originally, the Area Number (AAA) was the code for the office that issued the card. Starting in 1973, the Area Number reflected the ZIP code from which the application was made. The GG in the SSN was the Group Number, and the SSSS number the Serial Number. This is all moot today. Since 2011, SSNs have been assigned randomly. Some random numbers, however, have been excluded from use, i.e. Area Numbers 000, 666 (!) and 900-999.

666 is the number of the beast that is linked to Satan or the Antichrist, according to the Book of Revelation in the Bible. The fear of the number 666 has been given a name, i.e. hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. Don’t forget that …

38D Dickens and Dickinson : WRITERS

Charles Dickens was an English novelist who achieved great success in his own time, and is still regarded as perhaps the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. Many of his novels explored the plight of the poor in Victorian society, perhaps driven by his own experiences as a child. Dickens had to leave school to work in a factory after his father was thrown into a debtor’s prison. As a result, Dickens had to educate himself. He is said to have pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, with his first success coming with the 1835 serial publication of “Pickwick Papers”. And, everyone’s favorite has to be his 1843 novella, “A Christmas Carol”.

Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 1800 poems in her lifetime, with less than a dozen published before she died in 1886. Emily’s younger sister discovered the enormous collection, and it was published in batches over the coming decades.

43D Buffoon : ASS

A buffoon is a clown or jester, although the word “buffoon” tends to be used more figuratively to describe someone foolish and ridiculous. The term comes from the Italian “buffa” meaning “joke”.

47D Bishop, e.g. : PIECE

In the game of chess, the piece known in English as the “bishop” can have other names when translated from other languages. For example:

1. Elephant: Chinese and Russian
2. Jester: French
3. Runner: German
4. Camel: Hindi
5. Standard-bearer: Italian

48D Japanese word that’s sometimes translated as “planted in a pot” : BONSAI

The term “bonsai” is used more correctly to describe the Japanese art of growing carefully shaped trees in containers, although it has come to be used as the name for all miniature trees in pots. “Bonsai” translates literally as “tray planting”.

51D Medieval cure-all : LEECH

We are most familiar with medicinal leeches, which feed on the blood of mainly vertebrate animals. However, most leeches are predatory and swallow other invertebrates for food.

53D Radar operator’s concern : BLIP

Scientists have been using radio waves to detect the presence of objects since the late 1800s, but it was the demands of WWII that accelerated the practical application of the technology. The British called their system RDF standing for Radio Direction Finding. The system used by the US Navy was called “Radio Detection And Ranging”, which was shortened to the acronym “RADAR”.

56D Wilson of the Frat Pack : OWEN

Actor Owen Wilson was nominated for an Oscar, but not for his acting. He was nominated for co-writing the screenplay for “The Royal Tenenbaums” along with Wes Anderson. My favorite of Wilson’s performances, by far, is in the excellent movie “Midnight in Paris”.

The phrase “Frat Pack” grew out of the Rat Pack, and later the Brat Pack. Frat Pack has been used for two groups of performers. First it was applied to dramatic actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Edward Norton and Ryan Phillippe who had worked with each other in several films. The term is more regularly used for comedy actors Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn and Steve Carell.

58D Actress Kurylenko : OLGA

Olga Kurylenko is a Ukrainian actress and model. Kurylenko played the Bond girl Camille Montes in the James Bond movie “Quantum of Solace”.

61D Sketch show with Colin Jost, in brief : SNL

Comedian Colin Jost is perhaps best known as co-host of “Weekend Update” on “Saturday Night Live” (SNL), along with Michael Che (and how great are they together?). Offscreen, Jost shared a dorm with 2020 US presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, and ended up portraying him on “SNL”. While on the “SNL” cast, Jost met actress Scarlett Johansson on one of the occasions she hosted the show. They married in 2020.

62D Fight-ending letters : TKO

In boxing, a knockout (KO) is when one of the fighters can’t get up from the canvas within a specified time, usually 10 seconds. This can be due to fatigue, injury, or the participant may be truly “knocked out”. A referee, fighter or doctor may also decide to stop a fight without a physical knockout, especially if there is concern about a fighter’s safety. In this case the bout is said to end with a technical knockout (TKO).

63D Screen, as a candidate : VET

The verb “to vet” comes from the term “veterinarian”. The idea is that to vet something is to subject it to careful examination, like a veterinarian checking out an animal.