Day: March 12, 2025

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Constructed by: Rebecca Goldstein
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Hold Onto Your Hat

Themed answers each HOLD ONTO (hide) a type of HAT:

• 59A “This may come as a shock,” or an apt title for this puzzle : HOLD ONTO YOUR HAT

• 17A Gym shorts, yoga pants, tank tops, and the like : ATHLETIC APPAREL (holding onto “CAP”)
• 28A “Adiós, amigo” : HASTA MANANA (holding onto “TAM”)
• 35A Raise doubts : CALL INTO QUESTION (holding onto “TOQUE”)
• 45A Concept in modern morality : CYBERETHICS (holding onto “BERET”)

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

Bill’s time: 7m 28s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Work Extra? : CHEW

Extra is a sugar-free chewing gum that was launched in 1984 by the Wrigley Company. Originally using NutraSweet as an artificial sweetener, Extra was reformulated with aspartame in 1997, as aspartame is believed to be a safer ingredient.

9 Coral habitats : REEFS

When coral reefs lose the algae living within the coral tissue, they also lose the colors associated with that algae. The algae have vibrant colors due to the presence of photosynthetic pigments. Without those colorful algae, the coral reefs appear white, as we just see the coral skeleton made up of calcium carbonate. This “coral bleaching” is mainly the result of rising ocean temperatures caused by climate change.

16 Heart chambers : ATRIA

The heart has four chambers. The two upper chambers (the atria) accept deoxygenated blood from the body and oxygenated blood from the lungs. The atria squeeze those blood supplies into the two lower chambers of the heart (the ventricles), “priming” the pump, as it were. One ventricle pumps deoxygenated blood to the lungs, and the other pumps oxygenated blood to the rest of the body.

20 Spotted wildcat : OCELOT

The ocelot is a wild cat found mainly in South and Central America, although there have been sightings as far north as Arkansas. An ocelot doesn’t look too different from a domestic cat, and some have been kept as pets. Perhaps most famously, Salvador Dali had one that he carried around everywhere with him.

22 Distress signal : SOS

The combination of three dots – three dashes – three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots – pause – three dashes – pause – three dots). That said, in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so “SOS” is really only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are back-formations that were introduced after the SOS signal was adopted.

25 Alley- : OOP

An alley-oop is a play in basketball in which one player lobs the ball close to the basket for a teammate who usually scores with a slam dunk.

28 “Adiós, amigo” : HASTA MANANA (holding onto “TAM”)

“Hasta mañana” translates from Spanish as “See you tomorrow”, and literally as “Until tomorrow”.

The term “adiós” is Spanish for “goodbye”. “Adiós” comes from the phrase “a Dios vos acomiendo” meaning “I commend you to God”.

33 Unpleasant person : PILL

The term “pill” can be used to describe a boring and disagreeable person, a “bitter pill to swallow”.

35 Raise doubts : CALL INTO QUESTION (holding onto “TOQUE”)

A toque was a brimless style of hat that was very fashionable in Europe in the 13th to 16th centuries. Nowadays we associate toques with chefs, as it is the name given to a chef’s hat (called a “toque blanche” in French, a “white hat”). A chef’s toque is quite interesting. Many toques have exactly 100 pleats, often said to signify the number of ways that an egg can be cooked.

42 Neuro scan : EEG

An electroencephalogram (EEG) is a record of electrical activity caused by the firing of neurons within the brain. The EEG might be used to diagnose epilepsy, or perhaps to determine if a patient is “brain dead”.

43 __ snuff : UP TO

The term “up to snuff” today means “up to standard”. It was introduced to us for the first time in 1811 in a play called “Hamlet Travestie” by Englishman John Poole. He used the phrase to mean “in the know”. It was perhaps a reference to the habit of taking powdered tobacco, a practice back then that was associated with the upper classes, the educated, those in the know.

45 Concept in modern morality : CYBERETHICS (holding onto “BERET”)

Cyberethics explores the ethical considerations that arise from our use of computers and the Internet. It examines how traditional ethical principles apply to online activities.

50 James of “Misery” : CAAN

James Caan was an actor from the Bronx, New York City. He was noted for his appearances in some very big movies such as “The Godfather”, “Misery”, “A Bridge Too Far”, “Rollerball” and more recently “Elf”. Caan was quite the sportsman. He played golf with an 8 handicap, and was a 6-Dan Black Belt Master of Gosoku Karate.

The 1990 film “Misery” is an adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name. I think it’s the only movie from a King book that I’ve watched and enjoyed. I can’t stomach his books, not because of the writing, but because of the gruesome scenes that are part of the plots. The screen version of “Misery” is toned down a little from the original storyline. In the novel, the Kathy Bates character amputates the James Caan character’s foot to incapacitate him. In the movie she just smashes his ankles. Big difference …

54 Tofu protein : SOY

“Tofu” is a name for bean curd, and is a Japanese word meaning just that … bean that has curdled. It is produced by coagulating soy milk, using either salt or something acidic. Once the protein has coagulated, the curds are pressed into the familiar blocks. Personally I love tofu, but my wife absolutely hates it …

55 Hieroglyphic bird : IBIS

The ibis is a wading bird that was revered in ancient Egypt. “Ibis” is an interesting word grammatically speaking. You can have one “ibis” or two “ibises”, and then again one has a flock of “ibis”. And if you want to go with the classical plural, instead of two “ibises” you would have two “ibides”!

The prefix “hiero-” comes from the Greek word “hieros” meaning sacred or holy. The classic use of the prefix is in the term “hieroglyph” (meaning “sacred carving”), the writing system that uses symbols and pictures.

Down

1 “Adiós” : CIAO

“Ciao” is Italian for “‘bye”. “Arrivederci” is more formal, and translates as “goodbye”.

2 Mugful with marshmallows, maybe : HOT COCOA

Marshmallow was originally made from a paste from the root of the mallow plant. The mallow plant grows near salt marshes, and is sometimes called the “marsh mallow”. Hence the name of the confection. Interesting, but unexpected …

3 Exquisitely delicate : ETHEREAL

The Greek philosopher Empedocles proposed that there are four elements that made up the universe, namely earth, water, air and fire. Aristotle later proposed a fifth element which he called aether (also “ether”). Aether was the divine substance that made up the stars and planets. We’re still using the term “ether” with a similar meaning, and the extended term “ethereal” to mean “lacking material substance” and “marked by unusual delicacy”.

5 The Godmother of Punk 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.

6 Prefix with pen or gram : EPI-

EpiPen is a brand of epinephrine auto-injector. An EpiPen delivers a measured dose of epinephrine, which is a common treatment for an extreme allergic reaction.

An epigram is a short and clever statement, poem or discourse.

7 Triple __ liqueur : SEC

Triple sec is liqueur made from the dried peels of bitter and sweet oranges. I tend to use it in cocktails calling for Grand Marnier or Cointreau, as it is a cheaper alternative and tastes very similar …

12 __ Bowl: annual game in Arizona sponsored by Vrbo : FIESTA

The Fiesta Bowl is a college football bowl game played every year at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

18 Goddess of the dawn : EOS

In Greek mythology, Eos is the goddess of the dawn who lives at the edge of the ocean. Eos wakes each morning to welcome her brother Helios the Sun. The Roman equivalent of Eos is Aurora. Rather delightfully, Homer referred to Eos as “rosy-fingered dawn” in both “Iliad” and “Odyssey”.

25 Norway’s capital : OSLO

Oslo is the capital of Norway. The city burns trash to fuel half of its buildings, including all of its schools. The problem faced by the city is that it doesn’t generate enough trash. So, Oslo imports trash from Sweden, England and Ireland, and is now looking to import some American trash too.

29 Ctrl-__-Del : ALT

Ctrl-Alt-Delete is a keyboard command on IBM PC compatible systems used for a soft reboot, or more recently to bring up the task manager in the Windows operating system. Bill Gates tells us that the command was originally just a device to be used during development and was never meant to “go live”. He once said that “Ctrl+Alt+Delete” was a mistake, and that he would have preferred a dedicated key on the keyboard that carried out the same function.

36 Wine bottle sediment : LEES

The dregs in wine, the sediment that settles during fermentation (and sometimes in the bottle), are also called “lees”.

37 Throw in the towel : QUIT

The expression “to throw in the towel” means “to give up”, and comes from the world of boxing. In boxing, when someone in the corner feels that a fight needs to be stopped, he or she throws a towel into the ring and accepts the loss. Back in the 1700s, it wasn’t a towel that was thrown into the ring, but rather a sponge.

38 Inventory tracking aid, briefly : UPC

The initialism “UPC” stands for Universal Price Code or Universal Product Code. The first ever UPC-marked item to get scanned in a store was on June 26, 1974 at 08:01 a.m. at Marsh’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio. It was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum.

40 Dental hygiene : ORAL CARE

Hygieia was both the Greek and Roman goddess of health and cleanliness. She was a daughter of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine. The name “Hygieia” gives us our contemporary term “hygiene”.

49 Shake a leg : HUSTLE

Back in the 1680s, “to hustle” meant “to shake to and fro”. The term particularly referred to shaking money in a cap as part of the game “hustle-cap”. “Hustle” seems to have evolved from the Dutch “hutselen” meaning “to shake”. By the end of the 1820s, to hustle was to bustle, to move quickly.

53 Bug often observed in winter : FLU

Influenza (the “flu”) is an ailment that is caused by a virus. The virus is readily inactivated by the use of soap, so washing hands and surfaces is especially helpful in containing flu outbreaks, and other virus pandemics …

61 Liquid in the story of Hanukkah : OIL

The term “Hanukkah” (also “Chanukah”) comes from the Hebrew for “to dedicate”. Hanukkah is a holiday lasting eight days that commemorates the rededication of the Holy Temple of Jerusalem after a successful Jewish revolt against the Seleucids in the 2nd-century BCE. The story of Hanukkah includes the miracle of the one-day supply of oil that kept the menorah alight for eight days.