Day: January 9, 2026

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Constructed by: Rebecca Goldstein & Rachel Fabi

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Prefixes

Themed answers are all common phrases, reinterpreted as definitions of prefixes cited in the corresponding clues:

• 17A Pseudo? : FALSE FRONT
• 25A Neo? : NEW BEGINNING
• 38A Mono? : SINGLE ORIGIN
• 54A Mega? : GRAND OPENING
• 64A Anti? : NON-STARTER

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

Bill’s time: 8m 19s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Framing pieces : JAMBS

A door jamb or window jamb is the vertical portion of the frame. The term “jamb” comes from the French word “jambe” meaning “leg”.

6A Layer under a tee : 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”.

10A Basketball commentator Rebecca : LOBO

Rebecca Lobo is a former WNBA basketball player who launched a second career as a sports reporter and analyst for ESPN. Lobo played with the New York Liberty, Houston Comets and Connecticut Sun.

19A Annual EDM festival in 22-Down : ULTRA
22D Biscayne Bay city : MIAMI

The Ultra Music Festival is an electronic music event held annually at Bayfront Park in Miami. Co-founder Russell Faibisch named the event as a tribute to the 1997 Depeche Mode album “Ultra”.

24A Lab coat? : FUR

The Labrador (Lab) breed of dog has been around at least since 1814. The breed comes in three registered colors: black, yellow and chocolate.

37A Stalter of “Hacks” : MEG

Comedian and actress Megan Stalter’s big break came with the COVID-19 pandemic, during which she was dubbed “Queen of Quarantine” for a series of viral “character study” videos. She broke through with TV audiences playing the inept assistant Kayla on the comedy drama show “Hacks”.

“Hacks” is a comedy-drama TV series featuring Jean Smart as legendary stand-up Deborah Vance, and Hannah Einbender as young comedy writer Ava Daniels. The show premiered on HBO Max in 2021.

53A Ibiza, por ejemplo : ISLA

Ibiza is a Mediterranean island located almost 100 miles off the Spanish coast. It is a very popular tourist destination, largely for its legendary nightlife.

59A Missing GI : AWOL

AWOL (absent without leave)

The initialism “GI” stands for “Government Issue”, and not “General Infantry” as is widely believed. “GI” was first used in the military to denote equipment made from Galvanized Iron and during WWI, incoming German shells were nicknamed “GI cans”. Soon after, the term GI came to be associated with “Government Issue” and eventually became an adjective to describe anything associated with the Army.

70A Racing shell : SCULL

A scull is a boat used for competitive rowing. The main hull of the boat is often referred to as a shell. Crew members who row the boat can be referred to as “oars”. And, a scull is also an oar mounted on the stern of a small boat. It’s all very confusing …

71A Leave in the lurch in the church : JILT

To jilt someone with whom you have a relationship is to drop them suddenly or callously. “Jilt” is an obsolete noun that used to mean “harlot, loose woman”.

72A “Abominable” character named Everest : YETI

“Abominable” is a 2019 animated film about a teenage girl named Yi and a young yeti that she dubs Everest. The movie has been banned in several countries in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines. At issue is a scene showing a map of the South China Sea that includes the disputed Nine-dash line, a disputed demarcation line defining areas claimed by mainland China and Taiwan.

Down

1D Peter Pan rival : JIF

Jif is the leading brand of peanut butter in the US, and has been since 1981. Introduced in 1958, Jif is now produced by Smuckers.

3D “Naked” rodents : MOLE RATS

The naked mole-rat is an ugly-looking creature, I must say. Native to parts of East Africa, the naked mole-rat has very little hair and lives much of its life underground, hence its name. One reason that scientists are very interested in naked mole-rats is that they are exceedingly resistant to cancer. Discoveries made while studying the species led to the journal “Science” declaring the naked mole-rat “Vertebrate of the Year” for 2013.

4D Get three eights in blackjack, say : BUST

The card game known as “twenty-one” was first referred to in print in a book by Cervantes, the author famous for writing “Don Quixote”. He called the game “veintiuna” (Spanish for “twenty-one”). Cervantes wrote his story just after the year 1600, so the game has been around at least since then. Twenty-one came to the US but it wasn’t all that popular so bonus payments were introduced to create more interest. One of the more attractive bonuses was a ten-to-one payout to a player who was dealt an ace of spades and a black jack. This bonus led to the game adopting the moniker “Blackjack”.

6D Procedure practiced on mannequins: Abbr. : CPR

The standard CPR mannequin is called Resusci Anne, and is often called “the most kissed face of all time”. She was modeled after the death mask of an unidentified young woman who drowned in the Seine in the late 19th century. Toymaker Asmund Laerdal selected the image for the first CPR doll in 1960, believing her peaceful expression would be non-threatening to trainees learning the technique.

7D Preferring platonic relationships, informally : ARO

Someone described as aromantic (“aro”, for short) experiences little or no romantic attraction. The opposite of aromanticism is alloromanticism.

8D Café du __: New Orleans shop known for beignets : MONDE

Café du Monde (“Café of the World”) is a famous coffee shop located in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The café has been there a long time, having been established in 1862.

A beignet is a pastry made from choux dough that is deep fried, and usually served with powdered sugar on top. “Beignet” is a French word that translates as “bump”.

10D Rapper __ Mama : LIL

Rapper Lil Mama, born Niatia Jessica Kirkland, gained fame with her 2007 hit “Lip Gloss”. Beyond her music career, she also portrayed Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes in the 2013 biopic “CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story”.

12D Strait off the coast of Siberia : BERING

The Bering Strait lies between Russia and Alaska, and is just below the Arctic Circle. The strait is just 53 miles wide, and only an average of 100-150 feet in depth. It has long been speculated that when sea levels were lower there was a land bridge where the strait is today. This would have allowed humans to walk between Asia and North America, with the assumption being that the original population of the Americas migrated here from Asia.

13D Indonesian apes : ORANGS

Orangutans (also “orangs”) are arboreal creatures, the largest arboreal animals known to man. They are native to Indonesia and Malaysia, and live in rainforests. Like most species in rainforests these days, orangutans are endangered, with only two species surviving. The word “orangutan” is Malay, meaning “man of the forest”.

18D Nemeses : FOES

Nemesis was a Greek goddess, the goddess of retribution. Her role was to make those individuals who were either haughty or arrogant pay a price for their attitudes. In modern parlance, one’s nemesis (plural “nemeses”) is one’s sworn enemy, often someone who is the exact opposite in character but someone who still shares some important characteristics. A nemesis is often someone one cannot seem to beat in competition.

22D Biscayne Bay city : MIAMI

The city of Miami in Florida takes its name from the nearby Miami River, which is itself named for the Mayaimi Native American people who lived around nearby Lake Okeechobee.

Biscayne Bay is a lagoon in South Florida on the Atlantic coast.

26D Make like a banshee : WAIL

A banshee is a female spirit in Irish mythology, from the Irish “bean sí” meaning “woman of the fairy mounds”. The banshee is supposedly heard wailing in the night, especially when someone is about to die.

28D Sushi bite sometimes served on a model boat : NIGIRI

Nigiri is a type of sushi consisting of a small, hand-pressed mound of vinegared rice with a topping, typically a thin slice of raw fish or seafood. The name “nigiri” means “hand-pressed” in Japanese, which refers to the way the rice is shaped.

30D Vegan protein option : SEITAN

Seitan is a foodstuff made from wheat gluten that is often used as an alternative to meat. “Seitan” is a word that was coined in Japanese in 1961 by George Ohsawa, the founder of the macrobiotic diet.

40D Naan relative : ROTI

In an Indian restaurant, naan bread is very popular. Roti is an unleavened cousin of naan.

46D __ khao: Laotian crispy rice salad : NAM

Nam khao is a Laotian salad made by deep-frying seasoned rice balls until crispy, then crumbling them to mix with fermented pork sausage, peanuts, and fresh herbs. The mixture is traditionally eaten by hand as a savory lettuce wrap.

48D A __: literally, “from what is earlier” : PRIORI

In the world of philosophy, one can have “a priori” knowledge or “a posteriori” knowledge. A priori (“from the earlier”) knowledge is independent of experience, it is just known or assumed. For example, one might say that “all boys are males” is a priori knowledge. A posteriori knowledge relies on experience or some empirical evidence. For example, one might say that “boys are more likely to be diagnosed with ADD” is a posteriori knowledge.

49D Climber’s descent : RAPPEL

What we call “rappelling” in this country is known as “abseiling” in the rest of the world (from the German “abseilen” meaning “to rope down”).

56D Corning Museum material : GLASS

The Corning Museum of Glass is located in the Finger Lakes region of New York, and was founded in 1951 by Corning Glass Works to mark the company’s centennial. The museum can be visited in Corning, known as the “Crystal City” for its role as the center of the American glass industry in the late 1800s.

65D “Etc.,” in Pittsburghese : N’AT

A native of Pittsburgh might use the term “n’at” as a contraction of the phrase “and that”, replacing perhaps “et cetera” or “and so on”.

66D Fed. stipend for some people with disabilities : SSI

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a federal program that provides financial relief to persons with low incomes who are 65 or older, or who are blind or disabled. The SSI program is administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA) even though the Social Security trust fund is not used for SSI payments. SSI payments come out of general tax revenue.