Month: August 2025

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Constructed by: Chandi Deitmer & Claire Rimkus

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Nose Jobs

Themed answers are professionals who use their NOSES on the JOB:

• 64A Rhinoplasties, or an apt description of 16-, 25-, 37-, and 53-Across? : NOSE JOBS

• 16A Professional who makes a lot of scents? : PERFUMER
• 25A Professional who sniffs out crime? : POLICE DOG
• 37A Professional who helps you breathe easy? : ALLERGIST
• 53A Professional who stops to smell the rosés? : SOMMELIER

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

Bill’s time:6m 56s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Huge volume? : TOME

“Tome” first came into English from the Latin “tomus” which means “section of a book”. The original usage in English was for a single volume in a multi-volume work. By the late 16th century, “tome” had come to mean “large book”.

5A Animated pic : GIF

The Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) is an image format developed in the 1980s by CompuServe (remember CompuServe?). GIF images are compressed, reducing the file size, but without losing information. So, the original image can be reconstructed perfectly from the compressed GIF version. But, and it’s a big but, GIF images use only 256 individual colors. This means that GIF is a relatively poor choice of compression for color photographs, while it is usually fine for logos with large blocks of single colors.

8A Model Delevingne : CARA

Cara Delevingne is a model and actress from England. One might say that Delevingne was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She is descended from two Lord Mayors of London, her maternal grandmother was lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret, and her godmother is actress Joan Collins.

12A Cameo shape : OVAL

Cameo is a method of carving, often the carving of a gemstone or a piece of jewelry. The resulting image is in relief (sits proud of the background), whereas an engraved image would be produced by the similar carving method known as intaglio. Nowadays, the term “cameo” is used for any piece of oval-shaped jewelry that contains the image of a head, usually in profile (maybe even a photograph).

13A Obama-era legislation, for short : ACA

The correct name for what has been dubbed “Obamacare” is the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (ACA).

14A Canary melon kin : CASABA

A casaba is a type of honeydew melon that ripens relatively late in the season, and so is classed as a winter melon. The casaba takes its name from the Turkish city of Kasaba, from where the fruit was imported into America in the late 1800s.

18A Lion or tiger : ANIMAL

Cats are noted for their independence, and lions are exceptional in that they live in family groups called prides. Each pride is led by a male, that is responsible for protecting the group. The bulk of the group comprises females and cubs, with the females responsible for hunting and bringing in food for the pride.

Tigers are the largest of all the cat species. They are referred to as “apex predators” (as are lions and humans, for example), meaning that tigers are at the top of the food chain and aren’t the prey of any other animal.

19A Pt. of some gender-affirming care : HRT

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT)

20A “The Circus” painter Georges : SEURAT

Georges Seurat was a French Post-Impressionist. His most famous work is “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte – 1884”, a work in the pointillist style that can be viewed in the Art Institute of Chicago. If you’ve seen the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, it features quite prominently in a wonderful, wonderful scene shot at the gallery. The painting features ordinary people enjoying a day at a park, and is the inspiration for the 1984 musical by Stephen Sondheim called “Sunday in the Park with George”.

Georges Seurat’s “The Circus” (1891) was his last major work, and one that he left unfinished when he died. Regardless, the painting is one of his most famous, and has been on display in the Musée d’Orsay for decades. It depicts a female acrobat standing on a horse that is galloping around the ring.I have been lucky enough to view “The Circus” several times in that spectacular building …

22A “The Elephants” painter Salvador : DALI

Salvador Dalí’s 1948 painting “The Elephants” is a surreal landscape featuring two elephants. Notably, the elephants have impossibly long, spindly legs, and carry obelisks on their backs.

23A Puma rival : ASICS

ASICS is a Japanese company based in Kobe that produces athletic gear, including running shoes. The company name comes from the first letters of the Latin phrase “anima sana in corpore sano”, which translates to “a healthy soul in a healthy body”.

25A Professional who sniffs out crime? : POLICE DOG

Dogs have an amazing sense of smell, and scientists tell us that it is 10,000 to 100,000 more acute than human olfactory capability. We have about 6 million olfactory receptors in our noses, compared to about 300 million in the nose of a dog. When we breathe in through our noses, all of that air goes straight to the lungs for respiration. In dogs, about 12% of inspired air is directed to a part of the nose that is dedicated to the sense of smell.

30A Novelist Patchett : ANN

Ann Patchett is an author who lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Her most famous work is probably her novel “Bel Canto”, published in 2001. In 2012, “Time” included Patchett in the magazine’s list of 100 most influential people in the world. Also, Patchett co-owns Parnassus Books, an independent bookstore in Nashville

31A Cape Cod Bay mammal : SEAL

Cape Cod is indeed named after the fish. It was first referred to as “Cape Cod” by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602, as his men caught so many fish there.

32A Mayberry boy : OPIE

Opie Taylor is the character played by Ron Howard on “The Andy Griffith Show”. Opie lives with widowed father Andy Taylor (played by Andy Griffith) and his great-aunt Beatrice “Aunt Bee” Taylor (played by Frances Bavier). Ron Howard first played the role in 1960 in the pilot show, when he was just 5 years old. Howard sure has come a long way since playing Opie Taylor. He has directed some fabulous movies including favorites of mine like “Apollo 13”, “A Beautiful Mind” and “The Da Vinci Code”.

35A Donkeys : ASSES

A female donkey/ass is known as a jenny and a male is known as a jack, or sometimes “jackass”. We started using the term “jackass” to mean “fool” in the 1820s.

40A Dahi-based drink : LASSI

Lassi is a yogurt-based drink from India. Popular variants are namkeen lassi (which is salty), sweet lassi and mango lassi. There is even a bhang lassi, which is infused with a liquid derivative of cannabis.

“Dahi” (also “curd”) is a yogurt that is popular in the Indian subcontinent.

43A Clarinet insert : REED

The clarinet is a lovely-sounding instrument, isn’t it? The name “clarinet” comes from the Italian word “clarino” meaning “trumpet”, with the “-et” suffix indicating “small”.

44A Oklahoma city : ENID

Enid, Oklahoma takes its name from the old railroad station around which the city developed. Back in 1889, that train stop was called Skeleton Station. An official who didn’t like the name changed it to Enid Station, using a character from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King”. Maybe if he hadn’t changed the name, the city of Enid would now be called Skeleton, Oklahoma! Enid has the nickname “Queen Wheat City” because it has a huge capacity for storing grain, the third largest grain storage capacity in the world.

48A Poet Limón : ADA

Ada Limón was named US Poet Laureate in 2022, making her the first Latina to be so honored. One of her more notable works is the poem “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa”, which was commissioned by NASA. It is engraved, in her own handwriting, on a metal plate attached to the Europa Clipper spacecraft that will fly by Jupiter’s Galilean moon Europa in 2030.

49A Mega Man platform letters : NES

“Mega Man” is a series of video games created by the Japanese company Capcom.

51A Like plants that grow at high elevations : ALPINE

Alpine plants are those that thrive in an alpine climate, found at high elevations above the treeline. They are very resilient plants that are specially adapted to harsh conditions like low temperatures, intense UV radiation, strong winds, and short growing seasons. For instance, the highest flowering plant in the world, Arenaria bryophylla, grows as high as 20,280 ft above sea level, in the Himalaya.

53A Professional who stops to smell the rosés? : SOMMELIER

“Sommelier” is the French word for “wine steward”. The role of a sommelier, also “chef de vin”, extends beyond just uncorking bottles. A trained and knowledgeable sommelier is responsible for developing wine lists, providing wine service, and expertly pairing wines with food. Beyond wine, the term “sommelier” has expanded to include other beverage specialists, such as a “beer sommelier” (also known as a “cicerone”) or a “sake sommelier”.

57A Cravat alternative : ASCOT

An ascot is a wide tie that narrows at the neck, which these days is only really worn at weddings or part of a dress uniform. The tie takes its name from the Royal Ascot horse race at which punters still turn up in formal wear at Ascot Racecourse in England.

The cravat originated in Croatia and was an accessory used with a military uniform. Cravats were introduced to the fashion-conscious French by Croatian mercenaries enlisted into a regiment of the French army. The English placed a lot of emphasis on the knot used for the cravat, and in the period after the Battle of Waterloo the cravat came to be known as a “tie”. What we now call a tie in English is still called a “cravate” in French.

59A Color on the Qatari flag : MAROON

“Marron” is the French word for “chestnut”, which gives us our word “maroon” meaning chestnut-colored, dark brownish-red.

The flag of Qatar is distinctively colored maroon and white, featuring a broad serrated band on the hoist side with nine white triangles. While often described as maroon, the official color is actually referred to as “Qatar red”. The deep, purplish-red hue has a historical significance that predates the modern flag, as it was traditionally produced from a local dye made from shellfish.

64A Rhinoplasties, or an apt description of 16-, 25-, 37-, and 53-Across? : NOSE JOBS

The earliest recorded rhinoplasty procedures date back to ancient India around 600 BCE, described by the physician Sushruta in his text “Sushruta Samhita”, using skin from the forehead to reconstruct noses.

69A Old-timey television feature : DIAL

The first television remote control was introduced by Zenith Radio Corporation, in 1950. That remote was hard-wired to the TV, and was marketed as “Lazy Bones”. Personally, my first “remote” was a broomstick that I used by pushing in large mechanical buttons that selected one of the three channels that were available back then on the east coast of Ireland …

Down

3D Tennis great Hingis : MARTINA

Martina Hingis is a retired Swiss tennis player and former World No. 1 professional. She retired in 2007 after testing positive for cocaine during Wimbledon, although she denied using the drug.

7D Grain that may be cooked like risotto : FARRO

Farro is an ancient grain that is often used as an alternative to rice in dishes like risotto, thanks to its nutty taste and chewy texture. The term “farro” can refer to three different species of wheat: einkorn, emmer, and spelt. Emmer is often considered “true” farro and is the most common variety cultivated in Italy.

10D Open-sided shelters : RAMADAS

A ramada is a shelter with a roof and no walls, and is mainly found in the American southwest. Nowadays, the shelter can be temporary or permanent, but originally ramadas were makeshift shelters constructed by aboriginal Indians from branches or bushes.

11D Rock-clinging gastropod : ABALONE

The large edible sea snails that we call abalone are called ormer in Britain and Ireland, and are served as “awabi” at a sushi bar. The abalone shell resembles a human ear, giving rise to the alternative names “ear shell” and “sea ear”.

14D Screened porch for an indoor pet : CATIO

A “catio” is an enclosed, outdoor space accessible to an “indoor cat”. It gives the cat safe access to the outdoors, while at the same time protecting wildlife. It’s a “cat patio”.

17D Former country that included five -stan countries, for short : USSR

The former Soviet Union (officially “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” or “USSR”) was created in 1922, not long after the Russian Revolution of 1917 that overthrew the tsar. Geographically, the new Soviet Union was roughly equivalent to the old Russian Empire, and comprised fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs).

24D Sugary drinks : COLAS

The nut of the kola tree has a bitter taste, and is loaded with caffeine. Despite the taste, the nut is habitually chewed in some cultures, especially in West Africa where the tree is commonly found in the rainforest. Here in the US we best know the kola nut as a flavoring used in cola drinks.

26D Filing pros : CPAS

Certified public accountant (CPA)

28D La Tierra’s star : SOL

In Spanish, “la Tierra” (the Earth) circles the “Sol” (sun).

33D Region in the Achaemenid Empire : PERSIA

The Achaemenid Empire, also known as the “Persian Empire”, was a vast Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. At its peak, it was the largest empire the world had seen, covering over 2 million square miles, and stretching from the Balkans and Egypt in the west to the Indus Valley in the southeast. The name “Achaemenid” comes from Cyrus the Great’s ancestor Achaemenes.

41D Covered in tinsel, maybe : ADORNED

Back in the mid-1400s, the word “tinsel” applied to cloth into which was woven gold or silver thread. The term came from the Middle French word “estincelle” meaning “spark, spangle”, which ultimately derived from the Latin “scintilla” meaning “spark”. By the end of the 1500s, “tinsel” described thin strips of shiny metal. The word “Tinseltown” wasn’t applied to Hollywood until 1972.

42D Katana-wielding fighter : SAMURAI

A katana is a curved sword worn by the samurai of Japan. It is sometimes referred to as a “samurai sword”.

50D Bull on a glue bottle : ELMER

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.

54D “The Stiller and __ Show” : MEARA

Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara were a comedy duo perhaps best known together for “The Stiller and Meara Show”. Before they starred in their own show, Stiller and Meara were a popular duo on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in the 1960s. The couple was married for 61 years until Anne Meara’s passing in 2015. Their children, Ben Stiller and Amy Stiller, both followed their parents into the performing arts.

55D Bert’s roommate : ERNIE

Bert and Ernie are two of the most beloved Muppet characters on the children’s television program “Sesame Street.” Their characters were originally created by Jim Henson and his team to be different from each other in every way possible. Bert is the more serious, analytical and uptight one, while Ernie is more carefree, spontaneous and playful. The contrast between their personalities was intentional, as it was meant to help children learn about different personalities and how to get along with people who may be different from themselves.

60D Dept. of Labor div. : OSHA

The US Department of Labor (DOL) was founded as the Bureau of Labor in 1889 under the Department of the Interior. The Bureau’s status was elevated to Cabinet level by President William Howard Taft in 1913, with a bill he signed on his last day in office. The DOL has been headquartered in the Frances Perkins Building in Washington, D.C. since 1975. The building was named for Frances Perkins who served as Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945 and who was the first female cabinet secretary in US history.