LAXCrossword.com

Advertisement

Constructed by: Sara Muchnick & Doug Peterson

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Eye Roll

Themed answers each include at least one letter “I”, created by ROLLING a hyphen through 90 degrees:

• 37A Silent display of skepticism, or a phonetic hint for making sense of the answers to the starred clues : EYE ROLL

• 17A *Inlay material, often : MOTHER-OF-PEARL
• 28A *Not cooped up : FREE-RANGE
• 49A *Flexible : OPEN-ENDED
• 61A *Lightheaded ones? : JACK-O’-LANTERNS

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

Bill’s time: 9m 11s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6A Players who may have to start over many times : NOOBS

“Noob” (sometimes “newb” or “n00b”) is a not-so-nice, slang term for a “newbie”, and often refers to someone who is new to an online community.

11A Cannabis compound : THC

Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the main psychoactive in cannabis.

15A Home of the first : O’HARE

A jet bridge or jetway is a movable corridor that provides passengers the luxury of boarding an aircraft without braving the wind and rain. The first such connector was installed in 1958, at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Lockheed developed that particular jet bridge, and back then called it an “Aero-Gangplank”.

17A *Inlay material, often : MOTHER-OF-PEARL

Nacre, also known as mother-of-pearl, is the strong iridescent material laid down by some mollusks on the inside of their shells, and it’s also what makes up pearls. The creature lays down nacre as a defensive mechanism, protecting the soft tissue of its body from the rough surface of the outer shell. Similarly, it uses nacre to encapsulate harmful debris or a parasite that penetrates the shell, and that’s how a pearl is formed. Cultured pearls are made by inserting a tissue graft from a donor oyster, around which the nacre is laid down.

21A “iZombie” setting : SEATTLE

“iZombie” is a supernatural crime drama TV show that was adapted from a comic book series of the same name. New Zealand actress Rose McIver plays a Seattle medical examiner who solves murders by eating the victims’ brains. Ugh …

25A “The Phoenician Scheme” director Anderson : WES

“The Phoenician Scheme” is a 2025 black comedy film written and directed by Wes Anderson. I don’t really “do” Wes Anderson movies, so I won’t be seeing this one.

28A *Not cooped up : FREE-RANGE

Outside of the US, the term “free-range” is used to describe farming in which animals are allowed to roam freely and are not caged or penned up. In the US, the term is simply a marketing device, usually indicating that the animal has some access to an outdoor area, the size or nature of which is undefined. The politics of food …

32A Boris Johnson, for one : TORY

Boris Johnson is a larger-than-life Conservative politician in the UK, and former Mayor of London. He was the very visible frontman in the campaign for the UK to exit the European Union, the so-called Brexit campaign. As a result of the UK voting to exit the EU, Prime Minister David Cameron resigned, to be replaced by Theresa May. Theresa May then appointed Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary. Almost inevitably, Boris Johnson then replaced May as Prime Minister. In more recent times, Johnson famously made light of the coronavirus pandemic and ignored calls for social distancing. He then fell ill with COVID-19, ended up in an intensive care unit, and ultimately revised his advice about social distancing. Oh, and the media sometimes refer to Johnson as “BoJo”.

34A Treats embossed with flowers, dots, and dashes : OREOS

A standard Oreo wafer is a surprisingly detailed piece of work. It features 12 four-leaf clovers (or flower-like designs, depending on who you ask) in the center, and its outer perimeter is ringed by exactly 90 ridges or “radial lines”.

40A Cash back? : COW

On a farm, a dairy cow can produce a steady supply of milk, with relatively little maintenance. In the world of business, by analogy, a “cash cow” is an operation that delivers a steady stream of profits, with relatively little investment.

43A Leavening agent : YEAST

Leaven is a substance that causes bread to rise, perhaps yeast or baking powder. The term “leaven” comes into English via French from the Latin “levare” meaning “to rise”.

44A Lorna of literature : DOONE

The novel “Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor” was written by Richard Doddridge Blackmore. R. D. Blackmore was an English novelist, very celebrated and in demand in his day (the late 1800s). His romantic story “Lorna Doone” was by no means a personal favorite of his, and yet it is the only one of his works still in print.

54A Rx writer : DOC

There seems to be some uncertainty about the origin of the symbol “Rx” that’s used for a medical prescription. One explanation is that it comes from the astrological sign for Jupiter, a symbol put on prescriptions in days of old to invoke Jupiter’s blessing to help a patient recover.

56A Moseys : STROLLS

“Mosey” is American slang for “amble”, and is of unknown origin.

59A “Poppycock!” : TOSH!

“Tosh” is British slang for “foolish nonsense”, and is likely a combination of “trash” and “bosh”.

It is thought that the relatively gentle term “poppycock”, meaning “nonsense”, comes from a Dutch word for “dung” combined with a Latin word for “excrete”. Not so gentle after all …

61A *Lightheaded ones? : JACK-O’-LANTERNS

It’s thought that the tradition of pumpkin carving originated in Ireland, although turnips and beets were used over there instead of pumpkins. The turnips and beets were carved for the festival called Samhain, which marked the end of the harvest season.

66A Short-horned bighorn : EWE

The male bighorn sheep of North America has horns that can weigh up to 30 pounds, which is about 10% of the animal’s body weight. A female bighorn is distinguished by her dagger-like horns that are significantly smaller than the massive horns of the rams.

68A Acrobat’s platform : ADOBE

Adobe Acrobat is the software used to create .pdf files. Most of us are more familiar with the associated application called Adobe Reader, because that’s what we use to read those .pdf files.

69A “¿Qué __?”: Spanish greeting : TAL

The Spanish greeting “¿Qué tal?” translates literally to “What such?” It is a common conversational opener in the Spanish-speaking world, functioning as “How are you?”, “How’s it going?”, or even “How was it?”.

Down

5D Stanza units : FEET

In poetry, a foot is a metrical unit comprising usually two, three or four syllables. Lines of verse are often classified by the number of feet that they contain, e.g. pentameter: containing five feet.

“Stanza” is an Italian word meaning “verse of a poem”.

9D “The Marvels” star Larson : BRIE

I mainly recognize actress Brie Larson from playing the daughter of Toni Collette’s character on the excellent TV show “United States of Tara”. Larson is from Sacramento, and trained at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, where she was the youngest person ever admitted.

“The Marvels” is a 2023 superhero film, and a sequel to 2019’s “Captain Marvel”. Brie Larson reprises the role of Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers. Unusually for superhero movies, this one didn’t do too well at the box office and actually lost money after its run in theaters.

10D Floral leaf : SEPAL

In a flower, the sepals are the green, leaf-like structures that are “interleaved” with the petals, providing support. Prior to acting as support for the petals, the sepals protect the flower in bud.

12D Starter, e.g. : HURLER

A baseball pitcher might be referred to as a “hurler”.

13D Sticks in the refrigerator : CELERY

There’s an urban myth that the process of eating celery burns more calories than the body can obtain from the vegetable through digestion. While celery is indeed a low-calorie food, eating it does provide a net-positive number of calories.

19D Divisions d’une nation : ETATS

In French, “états” (states) are “divisions d’une nation” (divisions of a nation).

22D Pair sharing halves of a heart charm, informally : BFFS

Best friend forever (BFF)

23D Environs : AREA

“Environ” is the French word for “round” or “round about”. We use “environ” as a verb in English, meaning to surround, form a circle around. The related plural noun “environs” is used to mean “surroundings, environment”.

29D “10-4” : I SEE

There is a set of “ten-codes” that were developed in 1937 for the use of law enforcement departments. As of 2006, the US federal government is recommending that they be replaced by plain language due to a lack of standardization in ten-codes. Examples of ten-codes are:

• 10-1 meaning “bad reception”
• 10-4 meaning “understood”
• 10-9 meaning “say again”
• 10-33 meaning “emergency, all units stand by”

30D Miracle-__ : GRO

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company was founded in 1868 by one Orlando Scott, and initially sold seed to the agricultural industry. In the early 1900s, Scotts started to sell to homeowners, and mainly supplied lawn seed. The company merged with the gardening company Miracle-Gro in 1995.

35D Ye __ Shoppe : OLDE

The word “olde” wasn’t actually used much earlier than the 1920s. “Olde” was introduced to give a quaint antique feel to brand names, shop names etc. as in “Ye Olde Shoppe”.

38D NBA legend Ming : YAO

Yao Ming is a retired professional basketball player from Shanghai who played for the Houston Rockets. At 7’6″, Yao was the tallest man playing in the NBA. He has a cute nickname: “the Ming Dynasty”.

39D Predict-ability? : ESP

Extrasensory perception (ESP)

40D Musical conclusion : CODA

In music, a coda is primarily a passage that brings a movement to a conclusion. “Coda” is Italian for “tail”.

45D Discreetly, in slang : ON THE DL

Something described as on the down low is secret. The phrase “on the down low” is often shortened to “on the DL”, The same abbreviated expression can also mean “on the disabled list” in sports.

46D Chemistry lab fixture : GAS JET

The Bunsen burner is a common piece of lab equipment that is used for heating and combustion. The device was invented in 1854 by Robert Bunsen at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. It is sometimes referred to as an “etna”, a nickname coming from the Sicilian volcano.

47D National Gallery of Canada locale : OTTAWA

Ottawa’s National Gallery of Canada opened in 1880 with a collection consisting of just one painting, a landscape, displayed in a local hotel room. Two years later, the growing collection moved to its first permanent home, two rooms in the city’s original Supreme Court Building. Today’s gallery opened in 1988, and is home to almost 100,000 works.

48D Old Toyota subcompact : TERCEL

The Tercel was the first front-wheel drive car made by Toyota, and what a success it was. It was manufactured under various guises from 1978 to 2000. The name “Tercel” comes from the Latin word for “one third”. The name was chosen as the Toyota Tercel is about one-third smaller than the Toyota Corolla, and it also evoked the “tiercel”, a male falcon that is roughly one-third smaller than its female counterpart.

50D Public figure? : NOTARY

A notary public is a public officer licensed to perform specific legal actions in non-contentious legal matters. The main duties are to administer oaths, take affidavits and witness the execution of documents.

58D Venue : SITE

A venue is a specified locale used for an event. The term “venue” came into English via French from the Latin “venire” meaning “to come”. So, a “venue” is a place to which people “come” for an event.

60D __ beetle : STAG

Stag beetles are so called as the males of the species have large mandibles that resemble the antlers of stags.

63D Joey of fiction : ROO

Like most of the characters in A. A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh”, the kangaroo named “Roo” was inspired by a stuffed toy belonging to Milne’s son Christopher Robin. Most of the original stuffed animals belonging to Christopher Robin are currently on display at the New York Public Library. Roo is the only major character in the stories whose original is missing from the famous collection, as the real Roo was lost in an apple orchard in the 1920s.

64D “Space Jam” org. : NBA

“Space Jam” is a 1996 movie that is a fictional account of the retirement of Michael Jordan from the NBA. Jordan himself stars in the film, along with a whole host of “Looney Tunes” cartoon characters.