Day: May 17, 2025

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Constructed by: Rich Feely
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: None

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

Bill’s time: 16m 31s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 “The Sound of Music” backdrop, briefly : WWII

“The Sound of Music” is a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that was made into a celebrated movie in 1965 starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. The musical is based on “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers”, a memoir by Maria von Trapp. The von Trapp family ended up in Stowe, Vermont after World War II. One family descended from the Vermont von Trapps lives in the same town in which I used to live in California.

10 Start and end of New Mexico’s Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway : TAOS

The Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway is an 83-mile loop in northern New Mexico that winds through mountain landscapes, historic towns, and diverse ecosystems. It encircles Wheeler Peak, the state’s highest point, and offers views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Travelers along the route encounter arts communities in Taos, the historic mining town of Red River, and the picturesque village of Eagle Nest, among other stops.

14 “Put your phone down” : TOUCH GRASS

The phrase “touch grass” is Internet slang that essentially means to go outside and engage with the real world. Very “Die Hard-y”, I’d say …

17 Quarterfinalists : ELITE EIGHT

In the NCAA Division I Basketball Championship, the teams remaining at various stages of the tournament are known as:

• The “Sweet Sixteen” (the regional semi-finalists)
• The “Elite Eight” (the regional finalists)
• The “Final Four” (the national semi-finalists)

19 Chaps : MEN

“Chap” is an informal term meaning “lad, fellow” that is used especially in England. The term derives from “chapman”, an obsolete word meaning “purchaser” or “trader”.

24 Lollygags : DALLIES

To lollygag (also “lallygag”) is to dawdle, to dally.

29 Lightweight material : LINEN

The textile known as linen is made from flax fibers. The name “linen” probably comes from “linum”, which is Latin for both “flax” and “textile made from flax”.

39 Two-time WNBA MVP __ Delle Donne : ELENA

Elena Delle Donne is a professional basketball player who was the second pick in the 2013 WNBA draft, and was drafted by the Chicago Sky. She was the first WNBA player to join the 50-40-90 club, an informal statistic used to rate shooters. The requirement is to achieve a 50% field goal percentage, a 40% three-point field goal percentage, and a 90% free throw percentage.

42 UNESCO City of Literature in Devon : EXETER

Exeter is a historic city in the county of Devon in the southwest of England. The city takes its name from the river on which it lies: the River Exe.

Devon (formerly “Devonshire”) is a county in the southwest of England. The county town of Devon is Exeter, and the largest city in the county is Plymouth, the port from which the Mayflower Pilgrims departed.

46 One vertex of the Summer Triangle : ALTAIR

Altair is the brightest star in the constellation Aquila (the Eagle). Altair is also one of the three vertices of the Summer Triangle, the others being Deneb and Vega.

47 Cobra or bridge surfaces : MATS

Yoga’s “cobra pose” is also called “bhujangasana”. The Sanskrit word for snake or serpent is “bhujanga”.

Setu Bandhasana, or Bridge Pose, is a yoga asana that strengthens the back, glutes, and hamstrings. It involves lying on the back, lifting hips towards the ceiling, creating an arch that resembles a bridge.

48 Sign of success : SRO

Standing room only (SRO)

51 Designer Lagerfeld : KARL

Karl Lagerfeld is a fashion designer from Germany, although he is based in Paris. Lagerfeld is the head designer at the Chanel fashion house.

55 Comedian Wakim who is the first Lebanese American cast member of “SNL” : EMIL

Emil Wakim is a Lebanese American comedian and writer who joined the featured cast of “Saturday Night Live” in 2025.

58 Chef Lewis who specialized in Southern cooking : EDNA

Edna Lewis was a celebrated chef and cookbook author who played a pivotal role in preserving and popularizing traditional Southern cooking. She was born in Freetown, Virginia, a farming community founded by freed slaves. Her cookbooks, like “The Taste of Country Cooking” (1976) are considered classics, featuring authentic flavors of the rural South.

59 City on the Nile north of Lake Nasser : ASWAN

The Egyptian city of Aswan lies in the south of the country, on the River Nile. It is famous for its stone quarries, going back to ancient times. The most celebrated granite rock from the area is called syenite. Stone from Aswan was shipped northwards along the Nile and used in the construction of the pyramids. From ancient times right up to 1970, the annual flooding of the Nile was a significant event in Egypt. The flooding allowed the deposition of fertile silt far beyond the banks of the river, helping the region’s agriculture. However, the flooding was unpredictable. So the Aswan Dam was built in the sixties and from 1970 the flooding was brought under control.

Down

2 2023 AL Cy Young winner Gerrit : COLE

Gerrit Cole is an MLB pitcher who joined the New York Yankees in 2019. In doing so, he signed a 9-year contract worth $324 million dollars, which was a record for a Major League pitcher.

5 Gallinaceous bird native to Eurasia : PHEASANT

The common pheasant is native to Asia and parts of Europe. The same bird is usually referred to as the ring-necked pheasant in North America. The ring-necked pheasant is the state bird of South Dakota, even though it is not native to the state, and not native to the whole continent.

Galliformes are an order of ground-dwelling birds that includes turkeys, chickens, pheasants, quail, and grouse. They usually have robust bodies, strong legs, and short, rounded wings. Galliformes are also known as gallinaceous birds.

9 Skeptical response : IS THAT SO?

The word “skeptic” derives from the Greek word “skeptikos”, meaning “inquirer” or “investigator.” The earliest skeptics, like Pyrrho of Elis, were philosophers who questioned the possibility of certain knowledge and emphasized the importance of doubt and inquiry. Today, “skeptic” can refer to anyone who critically examines evidence and challenges assumptions.

10 Folks who tend to give things away : TATTLETALES

Something described as tattletale is revealing, it gives away a secret. The term is a combination of “tattle” and “tale”, and is probably patterned on the similar word “telltale”. “To tattle” means “to tell secrets”, and the noun “tattletale” applies to someone who tells secrets and informs.

12 Navel type : OUTIE

The navel is essentially the scar left behind when the umbilical cord is removed from a newborn baby. One interesting use of the umbilicus (navel, belly button) is to differentiate between identical twins, especially when they are very young.

13 Tally on some trackers : STEPS

Back in the mid-1600s, a tally was a stick marked with notches that tracked how much one owed or paid. The term “tally” came from the Latin “talea” meaning “stick, rod”. The act of “scoring” the stick with notches gave rise to our word “score” for the number in a tally.

15 Small inheritance? : GENES

The set of all genes in a particular population is known as the “gene pool”, a term coined in Russian by geneticist Aleksandr Sergeevich Serebrovskii in the 1920s. In general, the larger the gene pool, the more diverse and robust the population.

22 Boxing legend : ALI

Boxer Muhammad Ali is recognized on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the greatest sports figures of the 1900s. In 1999, Ali was named “Sportsman of the Century” by “Sports Illustrated” and “Sports Personality of the Century” by the BBC.

24 Guerrero of “Doom Patrol” : DIANE

Diane Guerrero is an American actress known for her roles in television series. She played inmate Maritza Ramos in “Orange Is the New Black”, Lina Santillan in “Jane the Virgin”, and played Crazy Jane, a lead character, in “Doom Patrol”. Guerrero is an advocate for immigration reform, and cites her personal experiences as the daughter of undocumented Colombian immigrants. Her memoir, “In the Country We Love: My Family Divided”, details her story and tells of the deportation of her parents and older brother back to Colombia when she was 14 years old.

“Doom Patrol” is a superhero TV series based on the superhero team of the same name in the DC Comics universe.

32 Timothée Chalamet epic set on a desert planet : DUNE

Actor Timothée Chalamet played two notable roles in the early 2020s. He portrays Paul Atreides in the two-part film adaption of the sci-fi novel “Dune”. He also plays the title character in the musical fantasy film “Wonka”. Chalamet is bilingual, in English and French. Born in New York City to an American mother and French father, he spent many summers as a youth with his grandparents just outside Lyon.

33 Petri dish gelatin : 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”.

35 In the minority? : UNDERAGE

When used in the context of age, “minority” and “majority” refer to legal status. A “minor” is a person who is under the age of legal adulthood, typically 18, and therefore under the legal authority of their parents or guardians. “Majority” refers to the state of having reached the age of legal adulthood, granting individuals full legal rights and responsibilities.

36 Crude, slangily : TEXAS TEA

“Texas tea” is a familiar term for oil drilled from the earth.

Crude oil is a naturally occurring liquid mixture of hydrocarbons that is found in geological formations. Also known as “petroleum”, crude is usually accessed by drilling. Once collected, it is refined and separated into many, many chemicals, e.g. gasoline and asphalt as well chemicals used to make plastics, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals.

41 CT scan kin : MRI

MRI scans can be daunting for many people as they usually involve the patient lying inside a tube with the imaging magnet surrounding the body. Additionally, the scan can take up to 40 minutes in some cases. There are some open MRI scanners available that help prevent a feeling of claustrophobia. However, the images produced by open scanners are of lower quality as they operate at lower magnetic fields.

A CT (or “CAT”) scan produces (via computer manipulation) a three-dimensional image of the inside of an object, usually the human body. It does so by taking a series of two dimensional x-ray images while rotating the camera around the patient. The issue with CT scans is that they use x-rays. High doses of radiation can be harmful, causing damage that is cumulative over time. The initialism “CT” stands for “computed tomography”. The older initialism “CAT” stands for “computed axial tomography”.

43 Former Minneapolis NBA player : LAKER

The Los Angeles Lakers (LAL) basketball team started out in 1947 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The team chose the Lakers name in honor of the nickname of Minnesota, “Land of 10,000 Lakes”. The Lakers moved to Los Angeles in 1960.

44 Site of Crockett’s last stand : ALAMO

Davy Crockett is often referred to as “King of the Wild Frontier”. He was from East Tennessee, and after serving in the local militia he entered politics and represented his state in the US House of Representatives from 1827 to 1831. Crockett disapproved of many of the policies of President Andrew Jackson, which led to his defeat in the 1834 election for the House. The defeat prompted Crockett to leave Tennessee for Texas. Famously, he died there in 1836 at the Battle of the Alamo.

45 Material for crafts and rafts : BALSA

Balsa is a very fast-growing tree that is native to parts of South America. Even though balsa wood is very soft, it is actually classified as a hardwood, the softest of all the hardwoods (go figure!). Balsa is light and strong, so is commonly used in making model airplanes. In WWII, a full-size British plane, the de Havilland Mosquito, was built largely from balsa and plywood. No wonder they called it “The Wooden Wonder” and “The Timber Terror”.

47 New __ : MOON

The phases of the moon have been given the following names, in order:

• New moon
• Waxing crescent moon
• First quarter moon
• Waxing gibbous moon
• Full moon
• Waning gibbous moon
• Third quarter moon
• Waning crescent moon
• Dark moon

48 Garbage barge : SCOW

A scow is a flat-bottomed boat with squared-off ends that’s often used for transportation, usually pushed or pulled by a barge. Often, a scow can be seen carrying junk or garbage.

49 Indian royal : RAJA

“Raja” (also “rajah”) is a word derived from Sanskrit that is used particularly in India for a monarch or princely ruler. The female form is “rani” (also “ranee”) and is used for a raja’s wife.

50 Actor/director Ken : OLIN

Ken Olin was one of the stars on the hit television series “thirtysomething”, playing Michael Steadman. After “thirtysomething”, Olin moved behind the camera and is now a producer and director.

53 High deg. : PHD

“Ph.D.” is an abbreviation for “philosophiae doctor”, Latin for “teacher of philosophy”. Often, candidates for a PhD already hold a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, so a PhD might be considered a “third degree”.

54 Uses Kik, say : IMS

Kik Messenger, commonly known as Kik, is a free instant messaging mobile app. Launched in 2010, it gained popularity among younger users for its focus on anonymity and ease of use, requiring only a username rather than a phone number to register. Due to its anonymous nature, it has also raised concerns regarding safety and moderation.