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Constructed by: Tracy Gray
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer(s): Turn on a Dime

Themed answers all start in one direction in the grid, and finish in another. The turn takes place at the word “DIME”, hidden within the answer. Clever …

• 41D With 69-Across, change quickly, and a hint to completing three other long answers in this puzzle: TURN ON A DIME

• 5A Collection of matching cruets: CONDIMENT SET
• 32A Violinist recognized at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1986: YEHUDI MENUHIN
• 1D “Happy our paths crossed!”: GLAD I MET YOU!

Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 7m 47s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Fare topped with tzatziki: GYRO

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).

5 Collection of matching cruets: CONDIMENT SET

A cruet is a small glass bottle that holds a condiment or perhaps a dressing. The word “cruet” comes from an Old French word meaning “earthen pot”.

14 Deer friend of Thumper: BAMBI

In the 1942 animated feature “Bambi”, the title character is a white-tailed deer. His best friends are a pink-nosed rabbit named Thumper, a skunk named Flower, and another deer named Faline with whom Bambi eventually falls in love.

15 WC: LAV

When I was growing up in Ireland, a bathroom was a room that had a bath and no toilet. The separate room with the commode was called the toilet or sometimes the W.C. (the water closet). Apparently the term “closet” was used because in the 1800s when homeowners started installing toilets indoors they often displaced clothes and linens in a closet, as a closet was the right size to take the commode.

17 Silk region of India: ASSAM

Assam, located in northeastern India, is the largest tea-producing state in the country. It is also famous for its silk production, particularly the golden muga silk.

18 Word with breaker or maker: ICE-

In order to be successful, an icebreaker must have a strengthened hull, a shape designed to clear the broken ice, and lots of power to push through thick ice. Russia has a fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers. They are so effective that in 1977, Russia’s nuclear-powered NS Arktika became the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.

23 One of three in bunco: DIE

Bunco is a dice game typically played with 12 players divided into groups of four. The objective of the game is to score points by rolling certain combinations of dice. Players take turns rolling three dice, trying to roll the number that corresponds to the current round. Interestingly, the name “Bunco” originally referred to a confidence trick or swindle similar to three-card monte.

24 Pharyngeal tissue: ADENOID

The adenoids, also known as the pharyngeal tonsils, are small masses of tissue located in the back of the nasal cavity, above the roof of the mouth. They play a role in trapping bacteria and viruses that enter the body through the nose and mouth. In some cases, enlarged adenoids can cause breathing problems or recurrent infections, and surgical removal may be necessary.

27 Vis-à-vis: AS TO

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.

30 Painter’s board: PALETTE

A palette is a board on which an artist holds and mixes paints. A classical palette is oval in shape, and has a thumbhole and an insert for brushes. Not every artist uses a classical palette. For example, Picasso used a sheet of newspaper.

32 Violinist recognized at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1986: YEHUDI MENUHIN

Yehudi Menuhin was a British violinist, born in New York City, who was known around the world as one of the greatest virtuosos of the 20th century. The violin he played was the Soil Stradivarius, one of a limited number of instruments made by the great Antonio Stradivari of Cremona. After Menuhin passed away in 1999, the Soil Stradivarius was acquired by Israeli-American violinist Itzhak Perlman.

34 Future JDs’ exams: LSATS

The law degree that is abbreviated to “J.D.” stands for “Juris Doctor” or “Doctor of Jurisprudence”.

43 Simpson with a blue beehive: MARGE

Marge Simpson is the matriarch of the family in “The Simpsons” animated sitcom. She is voiced by actress Julie Kavner, who is also well known for playing Brenda Morgenstern in the TV show “Rhoda” in the seventies.

That distinctive beehive hairstyle is also called a B-52, because the round, beehive-shape also resembles the bulbous nose of a B-52 bomber! The style originated in 1958, and is credited to Margaret Vinci Heldt, the owner of a hair salon in downtown Chicago. I’m not a fan of the beehive, but I do have to say that Audrey Hepburn carried it off in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, as did Dusty Springfield in her heyday.

45 Turkey’s national flower: TULIP

We usually associate the cultivation of tulips with the Netherlands, but they were first grown commercially in the Ottoman Empire. The name “tulip” ultimately derives from the Ottoman Turkish word “tulbend” that means “muslin, gauze”.

46 London district that includes Shaftesbury Avenue: WEST END

The West End of London is part of the central area of the city that contains many tourist attractions and in particular a large number of theaters. The West End of London is also home to the most expensive office space in the world.

53 High-priced Japanese beef: WAGYU

“Wagyu” is a name given to four different breeds of beef cattle in Japan. The famous Kobe beef is obtained from wagyu cattle. The name comes from the Japanese “Wa gyu”, which simply translates as “Japanese cattle”.

63 Novelist Shreve: ANITA

Anita Shreve was an author known for her bestselling novels that often featured complex female characters facing difficult choices and moral dilemmas. Some of her most popular novels were adapted into successful films, including “The Pilot’s Wife”, which was made into a CBS television movie, and “The Weight of Water”, which was adapted into a film starring Sean Penn and Elizabeth Hurley.

67 Pastrami bread: RYE

In the US, pastrami was originally called “pastrama”, and was a dish brought to America by Jewish immigrants from Romania in the second half of the nineteenth century. The original name may have evolved from the Turkish word “pastirma” meaning “pressed”. “Pastrama” likely morphed into “pastrami” influenced by the name of the Italian sausage called salami.

68 __ a one: NARY

The adjective “nary” means “not one”, as in “nary a soul” or even “nary a one”.

Down

2 Hatha practitioner: YOGI

Hatha yoga is a yoga system developed in 15th century India. Traditional Hatha yoga is a more “complete” practice than often encountered in the west, involving not just exercise but also meditation and relaxation. “Hatha” is a Sanskrit word meaning “force”.

3 Incur cellphone charges, maybe: ROAM

A cell phone user may encounter a roaming charge when roaming, when using his or her phone outside of the geographic coverage offered by the user’s cell phone provider. Basically, a partner network is providing coverage when roaming, and may impose a charge for the privilege of using the partner’s service.

5 Informal duds: CASUALS

“Duds” is an informal word meaning “clothing”. The term comes from the word “dudde” that was used around 1300 as the name for a cloak.

6 Mantra syllables: OMS

A mantra is a word that is used as a focus for the mind while meditating. The term is Sanskrit in origin, and is now used figuratively in English to describe any oft-repeated word or phrase.

7 Org. that includes nets and Nets: NBA

The NBA’s Brooklyn Nets were the New Jersey Nets until 2012, and were based in Newark. Prior to 1977, the team was known as the New York Nets and played in various locations on Long Island. Ten years earlier, the Nets were called the New Jersey Americans and were headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey.

13 Igloo rival: YETI

YETI is a manufacturer of coolers and related products that is based in Austin, Texas. There was a kerfuffle between YETI and the National Rifle Association in 2018, when YETI removed the NRA from its membership discount program. That kerfuffle got quite public when some NRA members published videos of themselves destroying their own YETI products in protest.

14 Bun cooked in a bamboo steamer: BAO

A baozi (also “bou, bao”) is a steamed, filled bun in Chinese cuisine.

22 Stooge with the shortest name: MOE

“Moe Howard” was the stage name of Moses Harry Horwitz. Howard was one of the Three Stooges. In 1925, he married Helen Schonberger, who was a cousin of Harry Houdini.

26 Caesarean delivery?: ET TU?

Julius Caesar was assassinated on the 15th (the ides) of March, 44 BC. He was attacked by a group of sixty people in the Roman Senate, and was stabbed 23 times. The first to strike a blow was Servilius Casca, who attacked Caesar from behind and stabbed him in the neck. In Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, Casca utters the words “Speak, hands, for me!” just before making the fatal blow. The following line, uttered by Caesar, is more famous though: “Et tu, Brute?”

29 Brother of Balder: THOR

In Norse mythology, the god Baldr (also “Balder”) is a son of Odin and Frigg, and a brother of Thor. In some accounts, Baldr was immune from harm. As a result, other gods entertained themselves by throwing objects and shooting arrows at him, knowing that they would have no effect. Loki the mischief-maker deceived the blind god Höd into hurling a spear made from mistletoe. Mistletoe was the only thing that could harm Baldr, and so he died.

37 Collector’s item?: REPO

Repossession (repo)

55 FedEx rival: UPS

United Parcel Service (UPS) is based in Sandy Springs, Georgia and has its own airline that operates out of Louisville, Kentucky. UPS often goes by the nickname “Brown”, because of its brown delivery trucks and brown uniforms.

56 Amex rival: CITI

During the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, the US government rescued Citibank by providing loan guarantees and two payments of $25 billion each. It turns out that the government made a tidy profit on that deal, as Citibank has since repaid the loans in full, along with interest.

57 Bohr model subject: ATOM

Niels Bohr and Ernest Rutherford introduced a model in which the atom comprised a small, positively charged nucleus around which traveled negatively-charged electrons. This model is often referred to as the Rutherford-Bohr model, or simply the Bohr model.

62 Road or roof goo: TAR

The terms “tarmac” and “macadam” are short for “tarmacadam”. In the 1800s, Scotsman John Loudon McAdam developed a style of road known as “macadam”. Macadam had a top-layer of crushed stone and gravel laid over larger stones. The macadam also had a convex cross-section so that water tended to drain to the sides. In 1901, a significant improvement was made by English engineer Edgar Purnell Hooley who introduced tar into the macadam, improving the resistance to water damage and practically eliminating dust. The “tar-penetration macadam” is the basis of what we now call “tarmac”.