Tag: Zinnia or sunflower crossword clue

Bill’s time: 5m 05s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5A Luxury handbag brand : PRADA

Prada started out in 1913 as a leather-goods shop in Milan, one established by the two Prada brothers. One of the brothers, Mario Prada, prevented the female members of his family from participating in the running of the company as he didn’t believe women should be involved in business (!). When the sexist brother died, his son had no interest in the business so it was his daughter who took over and ran the company for about twenty years, handing it over to her own daughter. I’d say the devil loved that …

10A Petri dish gel : AGAR

Julius Richard Petri was a German bacteriologist and was the man after whom the Petri dish is named. The petri dish can have an agar gel on the bottom which acts as a nutrient source for the specimen being grown and studied, in which case the dish plus agar is referred to as an “agar plate”.

14A West Coast sch. that joined the Big Ten in 2024 : UCLA

The Big Ten is the nation’s oldest Division I college athletic conference. It was founded in 1896, and earned the name “Big Nine” in 1899 when Iowa and Indiana joined to bring the number of teams in the conference to nine. The conference name was changed to the Big Ten after Michigan rejoined in 1917. Right after WWII, the University of Chicago dropped out so the conference became known as the Big Nine again until 1949. The official designation of “Big Ten” was adopted in 1987 when the conference (once again with a complement of ten teams) registered as a not-for-profit corporation. It was decided to keep the official name of Big Ten when Penn State joined in 1990 bringing the number of schools to the level of eleven. The number of schools in the conference continues to evolve, but that “Big Ten” moniker persists.

15A Stereotypical meal for a college student : RAMEN

Ramen is a noodle dish composed of Chinese-style wheat noodles in a meat or fish broth flavored with soy or miso sauce. Ramen is usually topped with sliced pork and dried seaweed. The term “ramen” is also used for precooked, instant noodles that come in single-serving, solid blocks.

16A “Veni, ___, vici” : VIDI

The oft-quoted statement “Veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) is believed by many to have been written by Julius Caesar. The words date back to 47 BCE and refer to the short war between Rome and Pharnaces II of Pontus.

17A Like the Code of Hammurabi : BABYLONIAN (“BABY” start)

The Code of Hammurabi is a code of laws that dates back to 1772 BCE, enacted by the Babylonian king Hammurabi. Partial copies of the code have been found on stone steles and clay tablets. The most complete copy of the code can be found on a large stele that is on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

21A Elmer’s product : GLUE

Elmer the Bull is the iconic mascot for Elmer’s Glue, although he wasn’t originally created for glue at all. He was introduced in 1940 as the husband of Elsie the Cow, the advertising mascot for Borden Dairy products. For years, Elmer appeared in Borden milk ads, often “fixing things” for Elsie, which made him a perfect fit when Borden launched their new glue product in 1947.

23A “There’s a cockroach!” : EEK!

The insect known as a cockroach is closely related to the termite. Although generally considered a pest, the lowly cockroach has at least one claim to fame. A cockroach named Nadezhda was sent into space in 2007 by Russian scientists, where it became the first terrestrial creature to conceive in space. Nadezhda bore 33 baby cockroaches after returning to Earth.

25A Pioneering hybrid car : TOYOTA PRIUS (“TOY” start)

The Toyota Prius is still one of the most fuel-efficient, gasoline-powered cars sold in the US, according to the EPA. The name “Prius” is a Latin word meaning “ahead, leading”. In the US we pronounce the name “pree-us”, but across the Atlantic it’s pronounced “pry-us”. According to Toyota, the plural of “Prius” is “Prii”. We recently gave up our 2012 Prius, with close to 200,000 miles on the clock (and the original brake pads!) …

29A Pouty expression : MOUE

The term “moue” comes from French, and means “small grimace, pout”.

30A Future atty.’s exam : LSAT

Law School Admission Test (LSAT)

31A Rae who played President Barbie in “Barbie” : ISSA

Issa Rae rose to prominence with her highly popular web series “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl”, which premiered in 2011. This led to her co-creating and starring in the acclaimed HBO comedy series “Insecure”, which garnered her multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. She’s also expanded into film roles and has her own media company: Hoorae.

37A Nebraska’s largest city : OMAHA

Omaha, Nebraska is home to four Fortune 500 companies:

• Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett’s holding company)
• Union Pacific (the second largest railroad in the US)
• Kiewit (a very large, employee-owned construction company)
• Mutual of Omaha (an insurance company founded back in 1909)

43A Fibrous part of broccoli : STALK

The Italian term “broccolo” is used to describe the flowering crest of a cabbage. We use the plural form of the same word “broccoli” as the name of the edible green plant in the cabbage family.

54A Kit ___ bar : KAT

I grew up eating Kit Kat bars as a kid. The Kit Kat hit the shelves on the other side of the pond in the 1930s, but didn’t make it into US stores until the 1970s. I’ve seen new varieties of Kit Kat bars over in Britain and Ireland, such as an orange-flavored version. I’ve been told that there are even more varieties available in Japan.

66A ___ leches cake : TRES

A tres leches cake is a type of sponge cake that has been soaked in three kinds of milk: heavy cream, condensed milk and evaporated milk.

Down

1D Large brass instruments : TUBAS

The tuba is the lowest-pitched of all brass instruments, and one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra (usually there is just one tuba included in an orchestral line-up). “Tuba” is the Latin word for “trumpet, horn”. Oom-pah-pah …

3D Macaroni shape : ELBOW

In many cases, the name given to a type of pasta comes from its shape. However, the name macaroni comes from the type of dough used to make the noodles. Here in the US, macaroni is usually elbow-shaped, but it doesn’t have to be.

4D 14 of these make up a fortnight : DAYS

A “Britishism” is a word or phrase in English that is typically used in Britain, with a meaning that is peculiar to that country. Examples would be “fortnight” (two weeks), “davenport” (small writing desk), “bomb” (great success), “kiosk” (telephone booth) and “dustman” (garbage collector).

9D Zinnia or sunflower : ANNUAL

Zinnias are plants in the daisy family that are named for the German botanist Johann Gottfried Zinn. It has been proven that zinnias can germinate and grow in microgravity. A NASA astronaut started an experiment in 2015 to grow them in space, aboard the International Space Station.

The common sunflower is so called because it has a flower head that looks like the Sun. Famously, young sunflowers exhibit heliotropism, tilting during the day to face the sun. As the sunflowers mature and bloom, they generally face east and no longer track the movement of the Sun across the sky.

10D Director DuVernay : AVA

Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker who became the first African American woman to win the Best Director Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, a feat she achieved in 2012 for her feature film “Middle of Nowhere”. “Middle of Nowhere” tells the story of a woman who drops out of medical school to focus on her husband when he is sentenced to 8 years in prison. DuVernay also directed the 2014 film “Selma” about the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

12D “Au revoir!” : ADIEU!

“Adieu” is French for “goodbye, farewell”, from “à Dieu” meaning “to God”. The plural of “adieu” is “adieux”.

18D Oscar winner Jared : LETO

Jared Leto is an actor and musician. In the world of music, he is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the rock band 30 Seconds to Mars. In the film world, one of his most critically acclaimed roles was that of a heroin addict in “Requiem for a Dream”. Leto also appeared in “American Psycho”, “Panic Room” and “Lord of War”. He won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in 2013’s “Dallas Buyers Club”, in which he portrayed a transgender woman.

22D English town famous for its salts : EPSOM

The Surrey town of Epsom in England is most famous for its racecourse (Epsom Downs), at which the Epsom Derby is run every year, one of the three races that make up the English Triple Crown. We also come across “Epsom salts” from time to time. Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate, originally prepared by boiling down mineral waters. Epsom was indeed a spa town at one time. The town is also home to Epsom College, an English “public school” (which actually means “private, and expensive”). One of Epsom’s “old boys” was the Hollywood actor Stewart Granger.

28D Holiday Inn competitor : RAMADA

The Ramada Inn hotel chain takes its name from the Spanish word for a shady resting place. A ramada is a shelter with a roof and no walls, mainly found in the American southwest. Nowadays a ramada can be temporary or permanent, but originally ramadas were makeshift shelters constructed by aboriginal Indians from branches or bushes.

31D Writes to on WhatsApp, in brief : IMS

WhatsApp is a popular messaging service used on smartphones that sends messages and other files from one mobile phone number to another. Launched in 2009, WhatsApp is incredibly popular, and indeed the most popular messaging service used today. Facebook (now Meta) acquired WhatsApp in 2014, paying over $19 billion.

33D Roll of two ones : SNAKE EYES

“Snake eyes” is a slang term describing a roll of two dice in which one pip turns up on each die.

36D Camera company known for its “moments” : KODAK

George Eastman founded the Eastman Kodak Company, which he named after the Kodak camera that he had invented four years earlier. He came up with the name of Kodak after careful consideration. Firstly he was a big fan of the letter “K”, calling it “strong, incisive”. He also wanted a word that was short, easy to pronounce and difficult to mispronounce, and a word that was clearly unique with no prior associations. “Kodak” fit the bill.

52D Houston baseballer : ASTRO

The Houston baseball team changed its name to the Astros (sometimes “’Stros”) from the Colt .45s in 1965 when they started playing in the Astrodome. The Astrodome was so called in recognition of the city’s long association with the US space program. The Astros moved from the National League to the American League starting in the 2013 season.

53D Swiss ___ (salad green) : CHARD

Chard is a lovely leafy vegetable, in my humble opinion. It is the same species as the garden beet, but chard is grown for the leaves and beet is grown for the roots. Chard also goes by the names Swiss chard, silver beet and mangold. In some parts of Australia, it’s even known as spinach.

54D Marsupial often mistermed a “bear” : KOALA

The koala bear really does look like a little bear, but it’s not even closely related. It is an arboreal marsupial and a herbivore, native to the east and south coasts of Australia. Koalas aren’t primates, and are one of the few mammals other than primates who have fingerprints. In fact, it can be very difficult to tell human fingerprints from koala fingerprints, even under an electron microscope. Male koalas are called “bucks”, females are “does”, and young koalas are “joeys”. I’m a little jealous of the koala, as it sleeps up to 20 hours a day …

56D There are 100 of these in every Scrabble game : TILES

The two blank tiles supplied in every game of Scrabble were not part of the original design. The game’s inventor, Alfred Mosher Butts, added them later on to increase the game’s flexibility after finding the initial all-letter version too restrictive.

64D Down Under bounder, for short : ROO

The word “kangaroo” comes from the Australian Aborigine term for the animal. There’s an oft-quoted story that the explorer James Cook (later Captain Cook) asked a local native what was the name of this remarkable-looking animal, and the native responded with “Kangaroo”. The story is that the native was actually saying “I don’t understand you”, but as cute as that tale is, it’s just an urban myth.