Tag: The Spanish alphabet’s 14th letter (without a tilde) or 15th letter (with a tilde) crossword clue

Bill’s time: 14m 01s

Bill’s errors: 2

• ENE (end)
• SHOHEI OHTANI (Shohdi Ohtani)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5A Scroll sites : ARKS

The Torah ark is found in a synagogue, and is the ornamental container in which the Torah scrolls are stored. The word “Torah” best translates as “teaching” or “law”. The Torah ark is referred to as the “Aron Kodesh” in Hebrew, meaning “Holy Ark”.

14A Singer/songwriter King with 2014’s “Ex’s & Oh’s” : ELLE

“Ex’s & Oh’s” is a 2014 song co-written and recorded by Elle King. It was to become her first song to break into the US Top Ten.

15A 8 vis-à-vis 7 and 9 : MEAN

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.

23A Rapper who won his first Grammy with “King’s Disease” : NAS

Rapper Nas released a “King’s Disease” trilogy of albums in 2020, 2021, and 2022. One interpretation of the title used for the series is that it is a metaphor for challenges that come with fame.

28A A flying fox is actually a type of this : FRUIT BAT

The genus of bats known as fruit bats are also commonly referred to as flying foxes. Their natural habits are found mainly in South Asia, Australia and East Africa.

33A Roughly 120, for Vatican City : ACRES

Vatican City is a sovereign city-state that is walled off within the city of Rome. Vatican City is about 110 acres in area, and so is the smallest independent state in the world. With about 800 residents, it is also the smallest state in terms of population. Although the Holy See dates back to early Christianity, Vatican City only came into being in 1929. At that time, Prime Minister Benito Mussolini signed a treaty with the Holy See on behalf of the Kingdom of Italy that established the city-state.

35A Hefty herbivore : RHINO

There are five types of rhinoceros that survive today, with the smaller Javan Rhino being the most rare. The rhinoceros is probably the rarest large mammal on the planet, thanks to poaching. Hunters mainly prize the horn of the rhino as it is used in powdered form in traditional Chinese medicine.

36A One meaning of the “+” in LGBTQ+, in brief : ARO

“Aro” is a common shorthand for “aromantic”. An aromantic person is someone who experiences little or no romantic attraction. It is distinct from asexual (“ace”), which refers to little or no sexual attraction, though some individuals identify as both aromantic and asexual.

38A Mustang, for one : MUSCLE CAR

The Ford Mustang car was introduced in 1964. Back then the Mustang wasn’t a brand new design, but was based on the Ford Falcon. The Mustang was the first of the “pony cars”, American models that are compact and affordable, as well as sporty in image and performance.

42A Rightmost column on the periodic table : GASES

The noble gases (also “rare gases”) are those elements on the extreme right of the Periodic Table. Because of their “full” complement of electrons, noble gases are very unreactive. The six noble gases that occur naturally are helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon and radon.

44A “When you teach your ___, you teach your ___’s “: the Talmud : SON

The Talmud is a collection of writings by thousands of rabbis and is a central text in Rabbinic Judaism, second only to the Torah.

45A D&D, e.g. : RPG

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D, DnD) is a complex role-playing game (RPG) introduced in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules Incorporated (TSR). Dungeons & Dragons was probably the first of the modern role-playing games to be developed, and the most successful. It is still played by lots of people today, including my youngest son …

47A Nickname for basketball’s Mike Krzyzewski : COACH K

Mike Krzyzewski is a coach and former basketball player from Chicago, Illinois. As a young man, Krzyzewski captained the Army Cadets basketball team, before serving in the Army for five years. After resigning from active duty, Coach K (as he is called) eventually took the head coaching job with the Army Cadets followed by the head coach’s position with Duke, where he has been since 1980. Today, Coach K also coaches the US International team.

53A Major for someone who can correctly distinguish between Manet and Monet : ART HISTORY

Édouard Manet was a French painter whose works are mainly classified as Realist and Impressionist. Manet was friends with Impressionists masters like Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir and greatly influenced the Impressionist movement. The list of Manet’s marvelous paintings includes “Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe”, “Le Repose” and “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère”.

French artist Claude Monet was one of the founders of the Impressionist movement, and indeed the term “Impressionism” comes from the title of his 1872 painting “Impression, Sunrise”. That work depicts the port of Le Havre, which was Monet’s hometown. Later in his life, Monet purchased a house in Giverny, and famously installed lily ponds and a Japanese bridge in the property’s extensive gardens. He spent two decades painting the water lily ponds, producing his most famous works. I was fortunate enough to visit Monet’s house and gardens in Giverny a few years ago. A beautiful place …

55A X or XL offering, perhaps : UBER

The rideshare service Uber takes its name from the English colloquial word “uber” meaning “super, topmost”, which in turn comes from the German “über” meaning “above”.

58A El ___ (Six Flags coaster with horns on the front) : TORO

The Six Flags Entertainment Corporation is an operator of amusement parks that is headquartered in Grand Prairie, Texas. Six Flags owns more amusement parks than any other company in the world. The first of these properties to open was Six Flags Over Texas. The park’s name was chosen as a homage to the flags of the six nations that have governed Texas, namely Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States of America, and the Confederate States of America.

Down

1D Tree goop : RESIN

Resinous trees have evolved the ability to secrete resins in response to an injury. The resin serves as a barrier, protecting the tree from insects and pathogens that might otherwise exploit the site of the injury.

4D Like the eyes of some Raggedy Anns : SEWN

Raggedy Ann is a rag doll that was created by Johnny Gruelle in 1915 for his daughter, Marcella. He decided to name the doll by combining the titles of two poems by James Whitcomb Riley, “The Raggedy Man” and “Little Orphan Annie”. Gruelle introduced Raggedy Ann in a series of books three years later. Sadly, Marcella died at 13 years of age with her father blaming a smallpox vaccination she was given at school. Gruelle became very active in the movement against mass vaccination, for which Raggedy Ann became a symbol.

8D Show with an illustrious “Five-Timers Club,” in brief : SNL

The “Five-Timers Club” on Saturday Night Live is an exclusive, fictional club for celebrities who have hosted the show five or more times. The concept was introduced during Tom Hanks’ fifth hosting appearance in 1990. The list of members who have hosted five or more times includes Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Tom Hanks, Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Scarlett Johansson and Martin Short.

9D Only M.L.B. player to have 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a single season : SHOHEI OHTANI

Shohei Ohtani is a baseball pitcher from Japan who started his professional career in 2013 playing for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. He was signed by the Los Angeles Angels in 2017, and in 2018 was named the American League’s Rookie of the Year.

10D Actress Collette with an Emmy and a Golden Globe : TONI

Toni Collette is a marvelous actress from Australia who really started to garner the public’s attention playing the title role in the 1994 film “Muriel’s Wedding”. She went on to take major roles in films like “Emma” (1996), “The Sixth Sense” (1999), “About a Boy” (2002), all of which are favorites of mine. Collette also played the lead in the excellent Showtime comedy-drama “United States of Tara”.

11D Retina contents : RODS

The retina is the tissue that lines the inside of the eye, and is the tissue that is light-sensitive. There are (mainly) two types of cells in the retina that are sensitive to light, namely rods and cones. Rods are cells that best function in very dim light and only provide black-and-white vision. Cones on the other hand function in brighter light and can perceive color.

13D They put runners out : TAGS

That might be baseball …

27D The “p” in Paddington Station? : PENCE

I remember the days when there were 240 “pence” (pennies) in an Irish/British pound. Life became so much easier when that was changed to 100 “new pence” in 1971.

32D Miss ___ USA (beauty pageant) : TEEN

Miss Teen USA is a beauty pageant for girls between the ages of 14 and 19. The competition was first held in 1983 and is run by the Miss Universe Organization, which was owned by future president Donald Trump for nearly two decades up until 2015.

33D Tank tops expose them : ARMS

“Tank top” is another one of those terms that always catches me out, as it has a different meaning on each side of the Atlantic. In the US, a tank top is a sleeveless shirt, something we would call a “vest” back in Ireland (and the US “vest” is what we call a “waistcoat”). A tank top in Ireland is a sleeveless sweater, which further adds to the confusion. The name “tank top” is derived from “tank suit”, an old name for a woman’s one-piece bathing suit. The use of “tank” for the bathing suit came from “swimming tank”, an obsolete term used in the 1920s for a swimming pool.

34D Ivory Coast’s main export : CACAO

The flowers of the cacao tree grow in clusters, directly on the trunk and on older branches. The pollinated flowers turn into ovoid cacao pods, each of which contain 20-60 seeds or beans. The seeds are used as the main ingredient in chocolate.

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.

39D Endor inhabitants in the “Star Wars” universe : EWOKS

The fictional forested moon of Endor features prominently in the “Star Wars” movie “Return of the Jedi”. The moon is home to the race of furry aliens known as Ewoks. Filming for the forest scenes actually took place in Humboldt Redwoods State Park in Northern California.

46D Santorini sandwiches : GYROS

A gyro is a traditional Greek dish of meat roasted on a tall vertical spit that is sliced from the spit as required. Gyros are usually served inside a lightly grilled piece of pita bread, along with tomato, onion and tzatziki (a yogurt and cucumber sauce).

The Greek island of Santorini is the most southerly in the Cyclades group of islands in the Aegean Sea.

47D Course in which integration is taught, for short : CALC

In the world of calculus, the integration function calculates the area between a curve and the x-axis or y-axis.

48D What comes before B? : ORAL-

The Oral-B toothbrush was introduced to the world in 1950, designed by a California periodontist. The first “model” was the Oral-B 60, a name given to reflect the 60 tufts in the brush. In 1969, the Oral-B was the first toothbrush to get to the moon as it was the toothbrush of choice for the crew of the Apollo 11 spacecraft.