Day: November 2, 2025

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Constructed by: Marc Goldstein

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: Retrace Your Steps

Themed answers are two-part phrases in which the second part is a type of dance, as well as the same word that ends the first part of the phrases:

• 22A Dance of the moonlighters? : SIDE-HUSTLE HUSTLE
• 32A Dance of the anglers? : SAND-DAB DAB
• 40A Dance of the mothers-to-be? : BABY-BUMP BUMP
• 69A Dance of the homebodies? : PORCH-SWING SWING
• 98A Dance of the flamboyant? : SHOW-PONY PONY
• 106A Dance of the investigators? : WIRETAP TAP
• 123A Dance of the pickpockets? : OLIVER TWIST TWIST

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

Bill’s time: 13m 11s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

9A Puck’s flagship restaurant : SPAGO

Wolfgang Puck is a celebrity chef from Austria. Puck is the man behind the famous pair of restaurants in Southern California called “Spago”.

20A Classic quilted handbag maker : CHANEL

The House of Chanel has its origin in a millinery shop in Paris that Gabrielle “CoCo” Chanel opened in 1909. The shop was on the ground floor of the home of socialite Étienne Balsan, of whom Chanel was his mistress. Using her connection to Balsan, Chanel met many women who lived extravagant lifestyles in Paris in those pre-war years, and hence was able to establish her reputation as a hatmaker. Chanel built on that reputation, and within a few years opened her first dress shop in Paris.

21A Goddess of marriage : HERA

In Greek mythology, Hera was the wife of Zeus and the goddess of women, marriage, family and childbirth. She was noted for her jealous and vengeful nature, particularly against those who vied for the affections of her husband. The equivalent character to Hera in Roman mythology was Juno. Hera was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea.

22A Dance of the moonlighters? : SIDE-HUSTLE HUSTLE

The hustle is a genre of disco dance that was popular in the seventies. The dance form really took off when Van McCoy released a song called “The Hustle”, to which an accompanying line dance became a big craze in 1975.

A side hustle is a side job, additional employment taken by a person to supplement his or her primary income.

27A Night, in the Eternal City : NOTTE

The Italian capital of Rome is known as the Eternal City, a name given by ancient Roman poets and writers.

32A Dance of the anglers? : SAND-DAB DAB

The dab dance move originated in the Atlanta hip-hop scene around 2014-2015. It involves dropping the head into the bent crook of one arm while extending the opposite arm straight out to the side. The final pose is often compared to the motion of someone sneezing into their elbow.

The sanddab is a type of flounder. It is a bottom-dwelling flatfish that lives on sandy seafloors. To protect itself from predators, it buries itself in the sand, leaving only the eyes visible. Those eyes are both on the left side of its body.

40A Dance of the mothers-to-be? : BABY-BUMP BUMP

“The Bump” is a simple partner dance move that was a hallmark of the 1970s disco era. Two dancers stand near each other and gently “bump” their hips together to the beat of the music.

46A Middle sch. math class : ALG

Algebra (alg.) is a branch of mathematics in which arithmetical operations are performed on variables rather than specific numbers (x,y etc). The term “algebra” comes from the Arabic “al jebr” meaning “reunion of broken parts”.

52A First-year student working toward a JD : ONE L

“One L” is a name used in general for first-year law students, especially those attending Harvard.

The law degree that is abbreviated to “J.D.” stands for “Juris Doctor” or “Doctor of Jurisprudence”.

57A “Whiskey Lullaby” singer Paisley : BRAD

“Whiskey Lullaby” is a 2004 song released by country singer Brad Paisley. It’s all about a couple who fall out of love and endure a painful separation. That leads to the pair drinking themselves to death. The lyrics include a pretty evocative line: “He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger”.

59A Prefix with -pathic : IDIO-

Something described as idiopathic arises spontaneously, or is caused by something unknown. The term is usually applied to a medical condition.

63A Work unit : ERG

An erg is a unit of mechanical work or energy. It is a small unit, with one joule comprising 10 million ergs. It has been suggested that an erg is about the amount of energy required for a mosquito to take off. The term comes from “ergon”, the Greek word for work.

64A Coin from the Royal Mint : SOVEREIGN

The British Sovereign is the UK’s flagship gold coin. It is made by the Royal Mint using a durable 22-carat gold alloy, and has a nominal face value of one pound sterling. It has an iconic reverse design of St. George slaying the dragon, with the obverse featuring a portrait of the reigning monarch.

66A Roman garb : TOGA

In ancient Rome, the classical attire known as a toga (plural “togae” or “togas”) was usually worn over a tunic. The tunic was made from linen, and the toga itself was a piece of cloth about twenty feet long made from wool. The toga could only be worn by men, and only if those men were Roman citizens. The female equivalent of the toga was called a “stola”.

69A Dance of the homebodies? : PORCH-SWING SWING

The swing style of dance was developed to accompany the swing style of jazz music that became particularly popular in the swing era (1933-1947). Examples of swing dances that persist to this day are the Lindy hop and Charleston.

73A Sleepy housemate : HAPPY

In the original Brothers Grimm fairy tale called “Snow White”, the seven dwarfs were not given any names. The names were added for the 1937 classic Disney film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. The seven dwarfs are:

• Doc (the leader of the group)
• Grumpy (that would be me, according to my wife …)
• Happy
• Sleepy
• Bashful
• Sneezy
• Dopey

76A Flag : TIRE

Our verb “to flag” meaning “to tire” was originally used in the sense of something flapping about lazily in the wind. From this it came to mean “to go limp, droop”, and then “to tire”.

77A MLB team playing in Sacramento ahead of their move to Las Vegas : ATHLETICS

The Athletics baseball franchise was founded in 1901 as the Philadelphia Athletics. The team relocated to become the Kansas City Athletics in 1955 and then moved to Oakland in 1968, where they were known as the Oakland Athletics, or more commonly “the A’s”, for 57 seasons. After the 2024 season, the team left Oakland and to play temporarily in Sacramento, in anticipation of a move to Las Vegas.

81A Mathematician Lovelace : ADA

Ada Lovelace’s real name and title was Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace. She was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the poet. Lovelace was fascinated by mathematics and wrote about the work done by Charles Babbage in building his groundbreaking mechanical computer. In some of her notes, she proposed an algorithm for Babbage’s machine to compute Bernoulli numbers. This algorithm is recognized by many as the world’s first computer program and so Lovelace is sometimes called the first “computer programmer”. There is a computer language called “Ada” that was named in her honor. The Ada language was developed from 1977 to 1983 for the US Department of Defense.

85A Israeli airline : EL AL

El Al is the flag carrier airline of Israel. It is the only commercial airline to have installed an anti-missile system on its planes. The system, known as Flight Guard, uses laser technology to detect and deflect incoming missiles.

86A Give kudos at a poetry slam : SNAP

A poetry slam is a competition in which poets read their own work (usually), with winners being chosen by members of the audience. Apparently the first poetry slam took place in Chicago in 1984. Now there is a National Poetry Slam that takes place each year, with representatives from the US, Canada and France.

89A Tolkien’s Shepherds of the Trees : ENTS

Ents are tree-like creatures that live in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth in his series of books “The Lord of the Rings”. “Ent” is an Old English word for “giant”.

95A Tennis icon Arthur : ASHE

When Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years as a political prisoner in South Africa, he was asked which American he would most like to meet. His answer was “How about Arthur Ashe?” Ashe was a vocal critic of South Africa’s apartheid policies and had long campaigned for the country to be excluded from international tennis competition.

98A Dance of the flamboyant? : SHOW-PONY PONY

The Pony is a novelty dance fad from the early 1960s in which the dancer mimics riding a horse by making a stationary trotting motion with their feet while holding their hands like reins. The dance became a massive hit after Chubby Checker released his #1 song “Pony Time” in 1961.

Our word “flamboyant”, meaning “showy and elaborate”, is a French term meaning “flaming”. The term was first used in English to describe wavy, flame-like curves used in architecture.

104A Musician and peace activist Yoko : ONO

Artist Yoko Ono operates the website ImaginePeace.com. I checked it out once and found these two lovely quotes:

• Imagine all the people living life in peace … John Lennon
• A dream you dream alone is only a dream, a dream you dream together is reality … Yoko Ono

106A Dance of the investigators? : WIRETAP TAP

Tap dancing is a very American art form that emerged in the 1800s. It blends elements of West African traditional dances with the step-dancing traditions of Britain and Ireland. Tap reached its pinnacle of popularity in the 1930s and 1940s, when it became a staple of Broadway musicals and Hollywood films thanks to legendary performers like Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Fred Astaire.

110A Biblical mariner : NOAH

According to the Bible’s Book of Genesis, Noah was instructed to build an ark using “gofer” (sometimes “gopher wood”). There doesn’t seem to be a lot of agreement on what is actually meant by “gofer”.

118A White Rabbit follower : ALICE

The White Rabbit is a character who appears at the very start of Lewis Carroll’s novel “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. Alice sees the White Rabbit checking his watch and mumbling “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!” Alice then follows him down the rabbit hole and into Wonderland.

122A Undershirt, briefly : CAMI

A camisole (also “cami”) is a sleeveless undershirt worn by women that extends down to the waist. “Camisole” is a French word that we imported into English that ultimately derives from the Latin “camisia” meaning “shirt, nightgown”.

123A Dance of the pickpockets? : OLIVER TWIST TWIST

The twist is a dance that was born in the sixties, inspired by the Chubby Checker hit of 1960 called “The Twist”. Checker sang the song live in front of a crowd in Deland, Florida in October 2012. About 40,000 people danced along to the music, setting a new Guinness World Record for the most people “twisting” at the same time.

“Oliver Twist” is an 1838 novel by Charles Dickens. The title character is an orphan who escapes from an oppressive apprenticeship with an undertaker. He gets drawn into the criminal underworld of London, where he meets up with some colorful characters such as the Artful Dodger, Fagin and Bill Sykes. Television, stage and film adaptations of “Oliver Twist” tend to lift the overall mood of the story, which in the novel is pretty bleak.

127A __ percent of the game is half mental”: Yogi Berra quip about baseball : NINETY

Yogi Berra is regarded by many as the greatest catcher ever to play in Major League Baseball, and has to be America’s most celebrated “author” of malapropisms. Here are some great “Yogi-isms”:

• It ain’t over till it’s over.
• 90% of the game is half mental.
• Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.
• When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
• It’s déjà vu all over again.
• Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t go to yours.
• A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.

131A “Hedda” actress Thompson : TESSA

Tessa Thompson is an actress from Los Angeles who is known for playing the supporting role of Jackie Cook on the TV show “Veronica Mars”, and for playing student leader Diane Nash in the 2014 film “Selma”. She also portrays superheroine Valkyrie in movies based on Marvel Comics characters.

The 2025 film “Hedda” is an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s iconic 1891 play of the same name. Actress Tessa Thompson plays the title role, and is one of the movie’s producers.

132A Drive up a phone bill, in a way : ROAM

A cell phone user may encounter a roaming charge when roaming, when using his or her phone outside of the geographic coverage offered by the user’s cell phone provider. Basically, a partner network is providing coverage when roaming, and may impose a charge for the privilege of using the partner’s service.

Down

1D Sauce made with basil and pine nuts : PESTO

The Italian term “pesto” applies to anything made by pounding. What we tend to know as pesto sauce is more properly called “pesto alla genovese”, i.e. pesto from Genoa in northern Italy. I love, love pesto sauce …

2D Rebellious mermaid : ARIEL
18A 2-Down’s love interest : ERIC

“The Little Mermaid” is a 1989 animated feature from Disney that is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name. It tells the story of a mermaid princess named Ariel who falls in love with the human Prince Eric. Ariel’s father is chief merman King Triton. Her best friend is Flounder, who despite his name is not a flounder at all and is actually a tropical fish. Ariel is also friends with Sebastian, a red Jamaican crab whose full name is Horatio Thelonious Ignacious Crustaceous Sebastian.

3D Helped through hard times, with “over” : TIDED …

Something is said to tide one over if it (often money) will see one through a rough patch. The idea behind the verb phrase “to tide over” is that a swelling tide can carry one over an obstacle without effort, as perhaps a reserve fund might keep the lenders from one’s door. The use of “tide” in this sense might come from some famous lines spoken by Brutus in the play “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare

There is a Tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the Flood, leads on to Fortune

10D Angel hair and linguine : PASTAS

Capellini is a pasta that is like thin spaghetti. An even thinner version of the pasta is known as “capelli d’angelo”, which translates as “angel hair”.

Linguine is a type of pasta that is similar to spaghetti, except that in cross-section linguine is elliptical whereas spaghetti is round. The correct name for the dish is “linguine” meaning “little tongues” in Italian. That said, the misspelling “linguini” is given in some dictionaries as an acceptable Americanized variant..

11D Radio receiver : ANTENNA

An antenna’s job is to convert electrical power into radio waves, and radio waves into an electrical signal. The first antennas were built by the German physicist Heinrich Hertz in 1888.

17D H.E.R.’s genre : R&B

Gabriella Wilson is a singer/songwriter who uses the stage name H.E.R. (pronounced “Her”), which is an acronym standing for “Having Everything Revealed”.

20D Margaret of “Drop Dead Diva” : CHO

Margaret Cho is a Korean American comedian and actress who was born in San Francisco in 1968. As well as performing as a comedian, Cho has also had a successful acting career, appearing in films such as “Face/Off,” “Bam Bam and Celeste,” and “All About Steve,” as well as TV shows such as “Drop Dead Diva” and “30 Rock.”

23D Big name in gummy bears : HARIBO

Haribo is a confectionary company based in Germany, in the city of Bonn. Founded by Johannes “Hans” Riegel, Sr. in 1920, the company name derives from the first two letters of the words “Hans”, “Riegel” and “Bonn”.

28D Toon devil : TAZ

The “Looney Tunes” character known as the Tasmanian Devil, or “Taz”, first appeared in a cartoon short with Bugs Bunny called “Devil May Care” in 1954.

33D India Gate city : DELHI

The India Gate is a war memorial in New Delhi that primarily honors the almost 75,000 soldiers from the Indian Army who died during World War I.

34D “L’Absinthe” painter : DEGAS

Edgar Degas’s famous 1876 painting “L’Absinthe” shows a man and a woman sitting together, although perhaps psychologically distant, in a Parisian café. There is a glass of the notorious green spirit in front of the woman, giving the work its name. Originally titled “Dans un Café” (In a Café), it can be viewed today in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

38D Butterfly honorific, for short : MME

Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” is the most-performed opera in the US. The opera that we see today is actually the second version that Puccini produced. The original version was first staged in 1904 at La Scala in Milan where it received a very poor reception. Puccini reworked the piece, breaking the second act into two new acts and making some other significant changes. The opera was relaunched a few months later and it was a resounding success.

40D Lobster dinner accoutrements : BIBS

The word “bib” comes from the Latin “bibere” meaning “to drink”, as does our word “imbibe”. So, maybe a bib is less about spilling the food, and more about soaking up the booze …

41D Prefix with -polis : ACRO-

The term “acropolis” translates from Greek as “high city” or “city on the extremity”. In English we use the term “citadel” to mean the same thing. The most famous citadel bearing the name is the Acropolis of Athens. This Acropolis is a large, flat-topped rock in the city of Athens that rises almost 500 feet above sea level. The most recognizable building that stands on the Acropolis is the Parthenon, also known as the Temple of Athena.

42D Wally’s sitcom bro : BEAV

Ward Cleaver and his wife June were the parents of Wally Cleaver and his younger brother “The Beaver”. The four family members appeared in the fifties sitcom “Leave It to Beaver”.

45D “Evita” name : PERON

“Evita” was the follow-up musical to “Jesus Christ Superstar” for Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Both of these works were originally released as album musicals, and very successful ones at that (I remember buying them when they first came out). “Evita” was made into a film in 1996, with Madonna playing the title role and Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce playing her husband Juan Perón.

49D Cradle of the Inca Empire : PERU

The area of South America that we now know as Peru was home to the Inca Empire, one of the largest and most powerful empires in pre-Columbian America. The Inca Empire existed from the early 13th century until it was conquered in the 16th century by the Spanish, led by Francisco Pizarro.

58D “Nosferatu” actress Lily-Rose : DEPP

French-American actress Lily-Rose Depp is the daughter of actors Vanessa Paradis and Johnny Depp. Lily-Rose’s godfather is rock musician Marilyn Manson.

The 2024 film Nosferatu is a gothic horror remake of the classic German silent film “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror”, released in 1922. The latter, in turn, is an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s vampire tale “Dracula”.

65D Rolls-__ : ROYCE

Henry Royce founded the Rolls-Royce company in 1904 with his partner, Charles Rolls. Royce died at 70 years of age in 1933. His last words were, reportedly, “I wish I had spent more time in the office …”

70D Small but loud songbirds : WRENS

The wren is a small songbird belonging to the family troglodytidae and the genus troglodytes. Wrens are known for making dome-shaped nests. Despite their small size, they are known for their loud and complex songs. Male wrens often sing to attract mates and to establish territory, They have been known to attack much larger birds that get too close to their nests.

71D Hula Hoop maker : WHAM-O

Wham-O was founded in 1948, with the company’s first product being the Wham-O slingshot. Since then, Wham-O has marketed a string of hit toys including the Hula Hoop, Frisbee, Slip ‘N Slide, Silly String, Hacky Sack and Boogie Board.

72D “Fighting” team of the Big Ten : ILLINI

The Illini (also “Fighting Illini”) are the athletic teams and marching band of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Illinois” is a French name that was given to the people who lived in the area (called “Illiniwek”).

79D Abel’s brother : CAIN

The story of Cain and Abel not only appears in the Christian and Hebrew Bibles, it also features in the Qur’an. In the Muslim account the brothers are named Qabil and Habil.

91D Many a Petrarch poem : SONNET

Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) was an Italian scholar and poet who lived during the Renaissance. Petrarch gave up his vocation as a priest, and soon after spotted a woman named Laura in his church in Avignon, France. He was so taken by Laura that he wrote many poems dedicated to her. He later clarified that he could not approach Laura with his feelings, as she was a married woman.

99D Curry favor with : WOO

To curry is to seek, at least when it is used in the phrase “to curry favor”.

109D Michelangelo masterpiece : PIETA

The Pietà is a representation of the Virgin Mary holding in her arms the dead body of her son Jesus. The most famous Pietà is undoubtedly the sculpted rendition by Michelangelo that is located in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. That particular sculpture is thought to be the only work that Michelangelo signed. In some depictions of the Pietà, Mary and her son are surrounded by other figures from the New Testament. Such depictions are known as Lamentations.

111D __ acid : AMINO

There are 20 different types of amino acids that make up proteins. However, only 11 of them can be synthesized by the human body, while the remaining nine essential amino acids must be obtained from food sources.

112D Shade-loving perennial : HOSTA

The Hosta genus of plant was once classified as a lily, but is now in a family of its own and is described as “lily-like”. The plant was given the name “Hosta” in honor of the Austrian botanist Nicholas Thomas Host.

115D “Citizen Kane” director Welles : ORSON

1941’s “Citizen Kane” was the first film made by Orson Welles, and is considered by many to be the finest movie ever made. It’s a remarkable achievement by Wells, as he played the lead and also produced and directed. Despite all the accolades for “Citizen Kane” over the decades, the movie was far from a commercial success in its early run and actually lost money at the box office.

123D Que. neighbor : ONT

The Canadian province of Ontario takes its name from the Great Lake. In turn, Lake Ontario’s name is thought to be derived from “Ontari:io”, a Huron word meaning “great lake”. Ontario is home to the nation’s capital of Ottawa as well as Toronto, Canada’s most populous city (and the capital of the province).

125D “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” band : WAR

“Why Can’t We Be Friends?” is the title track of a 1975 album released by the funk band War. The song gained a little airtime (space-time?) when it was played by NASA that year as a US Apollo module docked with a USSR Soyuz capsule, effectively marking the end of the Space Race.