Day: August 29, 2025

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Constructed by: Jeffrey Martinovic

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Compact Discs

Themed answers are presented literally in the grid, with “discs” surrounding each letter:

• 16A Programming sequences that don’t end, literally : INFINITE LOOP
• 22A Puzzling field formations, literally : CROP CIRCLES
• 30A Containers for a comic character’s internal monologue, literally : THOUGHT BUBBLES
• 35A Bling for successful MLB teams, literally : WORLD SERIES RINGS
• 42A Exercise devices for pet rodents, literally : HAMSTER WHEELS
• 51A Toys that are quite hip, literally : HULA HOOPS
• 59A Weights used for strength training, literally : MEDICINE BALLS

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

Bill’s time: 8m 01s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Celebrate emphatically : DO A JIG

The jig is a dance most associated with Ireland and Scotland. In traditional Irish dancing, the jig is second in popularity only to the reel. The most famous Irish jig is probably “The Irish Washerwoman”. I may not dance a jig, but I sure do know the tune of “The Irish Washerwoman” …

7A Root with red skin : RADISH

Radishes are edible root vegetables that are commonly grown for use in salads. Gardeners also use radishes as companion plants as the odor given off can deter pests such as aphids, ants and cucumber beetles. I do enjoy eating a spicy radish …

13A Gum choice : CINNAMON

“True” cinnamon sticks are taken from the inner bark of the Cinnamomum verum tree. However, a lot of cinnamon sticks are also sold that come from a related species of tree, and these are more correctly referred to as “cassia”.

16A Programming sequences that don’t end, literally : INFINITE LOOP

An infinite or endless loop is a set of instructions in a computer program that repeats continuously because of a lack of a terminating condition. Such loops can cause a computer to freeze.

18A “The Matrix” protagonist : NEO

Neo is the character played by Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix” series of films.

19A Crown material : ENAMEL

Tooth enamel covers the crowns of our teeth, and is the hardest substance in the human body. It is composed of 96% crystalline calcium phosphate.

21A Skater Midori : ITO

Midori Ito is a Japanese figure skater. She was the first woman to land a triple/triple jump and a triple axel in competition. In fact, Ito landed her first triple jump in training when she was only 8 years old. Ito won Olympic silver in 1992, and was chosen as the person to light the Olympic cauldron at the commencement of the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.

22A Puzzling field formations, literally : CROP CIRCLES

Don’t believe what you hear. Crop circles are hoaxes …

24A __ sequitur : NON

We use the Latin term “non sequitur” to describe an illogical statement, usually irrelevant to what has immediately preceded. The literal translation of “non sequitur” is “it does not follow”.

25A Chelsea apartments : FLATS

Chelsea is an area of central London located just north of the River Thames that is famous for its high property prices. Chelsea is also home to many expat Americans, who make up almost 7% of all the area’s residents.

27A Exercise in a heated studio : HOT YOGA

Hot yoga is performed under relatively hot and humid conditions. The actual temperature and humidity levels are often chosen to resemble those found in India, where yoga originated.

32A Sigma preceder : RHO

Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”, although it is equivalent to the Roman letter R. It is the 17th letter in the Greek alphabet.

33A Eurasian border river : URAL

The Ural River rises in the Ural Mountains in Russia and flows for half its length through Russian territory until it crosses the border into Kazakhstan, finally emptying into the Caspian Sea. It is the third-longest river in Europe, after the Volga and Danube. The Ural is often cited as defining a long stretch of the border between Europe and Asia, although the exact position of that border is open to debate.

34A Ability to see what others can’t : ESP

Extrasensory perception (ESP)

35A Bling for successful MLB teams, literally : WORLD SERIES RINGS

The first World Series rings were given to the New York Giants after their 1922 World Series win. Prior to that, and for a few seasons afterwards, players received keepsakes like pins or pocketwatch fobs. It wasn’t until 1926 that rings became an annual tradition.

42A Exercise devices for pet rodents, literally : HAMSTER WHEELS

The rodents known as hamsters are commonly kept as house pets. Male hamsters are called bucks, females are called does, and baby hamsters are known as pups.

44A Instant coffee brand : NESCAFE

Nescafé is an instant coffee brand made by Nestlé. The name is a portmanteau of “Nestlé” and “café”. Nescafé was developed in the thirties and introduced to the market in 1938.

48A Cameo shapes : OVALS

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).

51A Toys that are quite hip, literally : HULA HOOPS

Hula hoops were a big craze in the 1950s, but they have been around in various forms at least since the year 500 BCE.

52A NAACP co-founder __ B. Wells : IDA

Ida B. Wells was an African American journalist and leader of the civil rights movement. She published a pamphlet in 1892 called “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases”, which publicized the horrors of lynching of African Americans by white mobs in the South.

The full name of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is remarkable in that it still uses the offensive term “colored people”. The NAACP was founded in 1909, by a group that included suffragette and journalist Mary White Ovington, wealthy socialist William English Walling, and civil rights activist Henry Moskowitz. Another member of the founding group was W. E. B. Du Bois, the first African-American to earn a doctorate at Harvard University. The date chosen for the founding of the NAACP was February 12th, 1909, the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln, the man most visibly associated with the emancipation of African-American slaves.

53A Tequila plants : AGAVES

Tequila comes in four categories, depending on how long it has been aged:

• “Blanco” (white) or “plata” (silver) is unaged
• “Reposado” (rested) is aged 2 months to a year
• “Añejo” (aged, vintage) is aged 1-3 years
• “Extra añejo” (extra aged, ultra aged) is aged 3 years or more

59A Weights used for strength training, literally : MEDICINE BALLS

The term “medicine ball” was coined by Robert J. Roberts in 1876. According to a “Scientific American article” from 1889, Roberts used the term because using the ball “invigorates the body, promotes digestion, and restores and preserves one’s health”. At that time, “health” and “medicine” were considered synonymous.

63A Winter Paralympian apparatus : SIT SKI

The Winter and Summer Paralympic Games grew out of a gathering of British disabled WWII veterans that coincided with 1948’s Summer Olympic Games. The first official Paralympic Games was held in Rome in 1960.

64A Cooks dim sum, say : STEAMS

Dim sum is a Chinese cuisine made up of small portions of various dishes. The tradition of serving dim sum is associated with the serving of tea, when small delicacies were offered to travelers and guests along with tea as a refreshment. The name “dim sum” translates as “touch the heart” implying that dim sum is not a main meal, just a snack “that touches the heart”.

Down

1D Moola : DINERO

“Dinero” is a Spanish word meaning “money”, as well as a slang term for money here in the US.

3D Darth Vader’s childhood nickname : ANI

In “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith”, Anakin Skywalker is denied the rank of Jedi Master, despite being granted a seat on the Jedi Council. This denial was a pivotal moment in Anakin’s descent to the dark side. The rationale for the denial was primarily due to his youth and the Council’s mistrust of his close relationship with Chancellor Palpatine. This decision isolated Anakin further and fueled his belief that the Jedi did not trust him, pushing him closer to Palpatine’s manipulation and ultimately leading to his transformation into Darth Vader.

4D __ Doe : JANE

Though the English court system does not use the term today, “John Doe” first appeared as the “name of a person unknown” in England in 1659, along with the similar “Richard Roe”. An unknown female is referred to as “Jane Doe ”, and the equivalent to Richard Roe is Jane Roe (as in Roe v. Wade, for example). Variants of “John Doe” used outside of the courts are “Joe Blow” and “John Q. Public”.

6D Passed with flying colors : GOT AN A

The idiom “with flying colors” has a nautical origin. In the Age of Exploration, ships returning to port would signal their success or defeat by the position of their flags, or “colors”. If a ship was victorious, it would sail into port with its flags flying high from the mastheads. A defeated ship, on the other hand, would “strike her colors”, meaning to lower its flags, indicating surrender. So, to pass “with flying colors” literally meant a ship had succeeded, and the phrase later evolved to describe any triumph.

7D Take a turn in Yahtzee : ROLL

The dice game Yahtzee was introduced in 1956 and is a variant of earlier dice games, especially the game “Yacht” (which even has a similar name). Yahtzee is required entertainment in our house during holidays. The game involves the rolling of five dice, with the intent of getting certain combinations. A lot of those combinations resemble poker hands, such as a straight, three of a kind, four of a kind and a full house.

9D Original “Star Trek” studio : DESILU

As one might imagine, “Desilu” is a contraction of the names of the production company’s owners, Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. The name “Desilu” was first given to the couple’s ranch in Chatsworth, California. Desilu produced some great shows, including the original “Star Trek” and “Mission: Impossible”.

13D Guaranteed victory : CINCH

The term “cinch” was absorbed into American English from Spanish in the mid-1800s, when it was used to mean a “saddle-girth”. “Cincha” is the Spanish word for “girdle”. In the late 1800s, “cinch” came to mean a ‘sure thing”, in the sense that a saddle-girth can provide a “sure hold”.

14D Verne captain : NEMO

In the 1954 movie “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, Captain Nemo goes down with his ship. In the novel by Jules Verne (1869-1870), the fate of Nemo and his crew isn’t quite so cut and dry, although the inference is perhaps that they did indeed head for Davy Jones’ Locker. However, Nemo turns up alive and well in Verne’s 1875 novel “The Mysterious Island”.

23D Fireworks prefix : PYRO-

“Pyro-” is the combining form of the Greek word for “fire”. “Pyrotechnics” is the art of making and using fireworks. “Pyromania” is a strong desire to light fires.

25D Large books : FOLIOS

Some common book formats/sizes are folio, octavo and quarto. For an octavo book for example, sixteen pages of text are printed, eight pages on each side of a “full-size” piece of paper. The pages are formed by folding the sheet of paper three times in half, giving a group of sixteen pages printed on eight leaves (after separation). The size of the resulting pages of course depends on the size of the original sheet, but each page is one eighth the size of that original (hence the name octavo). Nowadays the octavo size refers to books that are between eight and ten inches tall. If you do the math, folio books are twice the size of quarto, and quarto twice the size of octavo.

29D “Fiddler on the Roof” wife : GOLDE

The enduring musical “Fiddler on the Roof” is based on a collection of stories by Sholem Aleichem about Tevye, a milkman living in Tsarist Russia. The musical version of the tales first opened on Broadway in 1964. “Fiddler on the Roof” had such a long run that it became the first musical to reach 3,000 performances.

31D Gold rush storyteller Bret : HARTE

Bret Harte was a storyteller noted for his tales of the American West, even though he himself was from back East, born in Albany, New York. One work attributed to him is “Ah Sin”, a disastrously unsuccessful play written by Harte with Mark Twain. The two writers didn’t get on at all well during the writing process, and when the play was produced for the stage it was very poorly received. Nevertheless, Twain suggested a further collaboration with Harte, and Harte downright refused!

36D Tight-fitting lid : DURAG

Hip-hoppers might wear do-rags (also “durags”) today, but they have been around for centuries. The etymology of “do-rag” is pretty evident, i.e. a piece of cloth (rag) to hold a hairstyle (do) in place.

38D Soup with rice noodles : PHO

Pho (pronounced “fuh”) is a noodle soup from Vietnam that is a popular street food. It is often ordered with a side of hanh dam, pickled white onions.

39D Filled pasta : RAVIOLI

Ravioli (singular “raviolo”) are filled dumplings served in Italian cuisine.

44D Storied works : NOVELS

Our word “novel”, used for a lengthy work of fiction, comes from the Latin “novella” meaning “new things”.

45D Condition measured on a spectrum : AUTISM

Autism, often called ASD (autism spectrum disorder), is a brain development difference that affects how people communicate and interact socially. People with autism often like things to be predictable, might process sensory information differently, have very focused interests, and might do repetitive things. It’s called a “spectrum disorder” because it shows up in many different ways, from people who speak to those who don’t. While the exact causes aren’t fully known, it is known that it runs in families and is linked to many genes. Also, boys get diagnosed more often than girls.

46D Spark producers : FLINTS

Flint is a form of the mineral quartz, and a material that can be used to start a fire. The hard edge of flint when struck against steel can shave off a particle of the metal. The particle of steel contains exposed iron that reacts with oxygen in the air creating a spark that can light dry tinder.

50D Clue, e.g. : GAME

Clue is a board game that we knew under a different name growing up in Ireland. Outside of North America, Clue is marketed as “Cluedo”. Cluedo was the original name of the game, introduced in 1949 by the famous British board game manufacturer Waddingtons. There are cute differences between the US and UK versions. For example, the man who is murdered is called Dr. Black (Mr. Boddy in the US), one of the suspects is the Reverend Green (Mr. Green in the US), and the suspect weapons include a dagger (a knife in the US), and a spanner (a wrench in the US). I think it’s a fabulous game, a must during the holidays …

58D HP supply : INK

“Inkjet” is a very accurate and descriptive name for the type of printer. Printing is accomplished by shooting extremely fine jets of ink onto the page.

The giant multinational HP (originally “Hewlett-Packard”) was founded in 1939 with an investment of $538 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. The company name would have been Packard-Hewlett, if Dave Packard had won a coin toss!

60D Langley org. : CIA

The CIA headquarters is located in Langley, Virginia in a complex called the George Bush Center for Intelligence. The facility was named for former Director of the CIA and US President George H. W. Bush. Langley used to be the largest intelligence agency (by area) in the western world, but that honor now goes to the BND Headquarters in Berlin.