Day: February 12, 2026

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Constructed by: Joe Marquez

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Loose Change

Themed answers all include the letter string “LOOSE”, but with the order CHANGED:

• 62A Collection found under sofa cushions, or what can be found in the answers to the starred clues? : LOOSE CHANGE

• 17A *Pointless task : FOOL’S ERRAND
• 21A *Climb without ropes : FREE SOLO
• 38A *Craftsman kit : TOOLSET
• 55A *Squeaker : CLOSE ONE

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

Bill’s time: 5m 36s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Winter X Games host city : ASPEN

Aspen, Colorado used to be known as Ute City, with the name change taking place in 1880. Like many communities in the area, Aspen was a mining town, and in 1891 and 1892 it was at the center of the highest production of silver in the US. Nowadays, it’s all about skiing and movie stars.

The X Games are annual events, with a Summer X Games held every year as well as a Winter X Games. It’s very much a commercial venture, with all aspects controlled by the TV station ESPN. The games focus on extreme action sports, like skateboarding and freestyle motocross in the summer and various extreme snowboarding events in the winter.

10A Park place? : LOT

The “city lot” sense of “lot” is intertwined with the older practice of “casting lots”. Historically, land division was often determined by chance, particularly in early settlements or when distributing land among a group. “Lots” were physical objects, like stones or slips of paper, marked to represent different land parcels. These were drawn randomly, and the “lot” a person received corresponded to the specific piece of land assigned to that marker. This practice of “casting lots” directly led to the use of “lot” as a term for a defined piece of land, eventually giving us the modern usage in “city lot” and “parking lot.”

13A __ Doone cookies : LORNA

Lorna Doone shortbread cookies were introduced by Nabisco in 1912. Presumably, they were named after the famous novel by R. D. Blackmore.

14A 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.

16A Janelle’s “Abbott Elementary” role : AVA

Janelle James is a comedian and actress who is perhaps best known to TV audiences for playing Ava Coleman, the school’s inept principal in the mockumentary sitcom “Abbott Elementary”.

19A Derisive cry : BAH!

To deride is to treat with contemptuous mirth. The term comes into English via Old French from the Latin “deridere” meaning “to ridicule”. In turn, “deridere” comes from the prefix “de-” (down) and ”ridere” (to laugh). So, to ridicule or deride is “to laugh down at”.

21A *Climb without ropes : FREE SOLO

When free solo climbing, a climber ascends the rock face without the use of protective equipment such as ropes or harnesses. If you’d like to spend a couple of terrifying hours in the comfort of your family room, I recommend viewing the 2018 Oscar-winning documentary film “Free Solo”.

23A Like the most yellow banana on the tree : RIPEST

The banana is actually a berry, botanically speaking. And, bananas don’t really grow on trees. The “trunk” of the banana plant is a pseudostem, a false stem comprising rolled bases of leaves, and it can grow to 2 or 3 meters tall.

30A Desert refuges : OASES

An isolated area of vegetation in a desert is called an oasis (plural “oases”). As water is needed for plant growth, an oasis might also include a spring, pond or small lake. We often use the term “oasis” more generally to describe a haven, a place of rest.

37A Telethon VIPs : MCS

The world’s first telethon took place in 1949. It was a 16-hour fundraiser hosted by Milton Berle that raised over a million dollars for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. The term “telethon”, a portmanteau of “television” and “marathon”, was coined in the news media the day after the event. One of the most famous annual telethons was the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon, which raised funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Association for over twenty years, from 1966 until 2010.

41A Prospector’s find : ORE

The term “prospect” describes the act of looking forward in anticipation. In the sense of mining, a “prospector” is someone searching for valuable ores or minerals “in anticipation” of regular mining operations.

45A Pieces of the heart : ATRIA

The heart has four chambers. The two upper chambers are the atria. The right atrium accepts deoxygenated blood, while the left atrium accepts oxygenated blood from the lungs. The atria squeeze those blood supplies into the two lower chambers of the heart (the ventricles), “priming” the pump, as it were. One ventricle pumps deoxygenated blood to the lungs, and the other pumps oxygenated blood to the rest of the body.

53A Gets out of Dodge : SCRAMS

The phrase “get out of Dodge”, meaning “scram, flee”, is a reference to Dodge City, Kansas. The phrase became a cliché on TV westerns (mainly “Gunsmoke”, I think) and was then popularized by teenagers in the sixties and seventies.

57A Swashbuckler’s sword : RAPIER

A rapier is a very thin sword with a sharp point that is used to kill and maim by thrusting the point into the body, rather than by slashing.

A swashbuckler is a flashy swordsman. The term “swashbuckler” probably derives somehow from “swash” meaning “fall of a blow”, and “buckler” meaning “small round shield”.

64A N.J. winter hrs. : EST

The State of New Jersey is named for the Channel Island of Jersey located off the coast of France in the English Channel. Jersey remained loyal to the British Crown during the English Civil War in the mid-17th century, and indeed, Charles II was proclaimed king on the island after his father Charles I was beheaded in London. Charles II created the Province of New Jersey, and awarded it to men loyal to the crown. The province declared itself the State of New Jersey in 1776.

66A Gas in some colorful signs : ARGON

The chemical element argon has the symbol Ar. It is a noble gas, and so by definition is relatively nonreactive. The name “argon” comes from the Greek word for “lazy, inactive”. There’s a lot of argon around, as it is the third-most abundant gas in our atmosphere.

Down

1D A in communications? : ALFA

The NATO phonetic alphabet is also called the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) phonetic alphabet. Alfa, Bravo, Charlie … X-ray, Yankee, Zulu.

6D “¿__ qué?” : POR

In Spanish, one might ask “Por qué?” (Why?).

10D Place for experiments : LABORATORY

Our term “laboratory”, often shortened to “lab”, comes from the Medieval Latin word “laboratorium” meaning “place for labor, work”. This in turn comes from the Latin verb “laborare” meaning “to work”.

12D Lake in the Sierra Nevada : TAHOE

The American Sierra Nevada range lies in California and Nevada. The Spanish Sierra Nevada range is in Andalusia, with the name meaning “snowy range” in Spanish.

15D Utopias : EDENS

The word “Utopia” was coined by Sir Thomas More in his book “Utopia” published in 1516 to describe an idyllic fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. More’s use of the name Utopia comes from the Greek “ou” meaning “not” and “topos” meaning “place”. By calling his perfect island “Not Place”, More was apparently making the point that he didn’t think that the ideal could actually exist.

18D “30 for 30” network : ESPN

“30 for 30” is a series of ESPN documentary films that has aired since 2009. The series originated as a celebration of ESPN’s 30th birthday. To recognize that anniversary, the network commissioned 30 filmmakers to make 30 one-hour films covering the big stories in ESPN’s 30-year history. The series was so well received that ESPN continues to make similar documentaries using the “30 for 30” umbrella title.

29D Primatology subject : APE

Primatology is the study of primates, especially non-human primates.

32D Pharmaceutical giant __ Lilly : ELI

Eli Lilly is the largest corporation in the state of Indiana. Founder Eli Lilly was a veteran of the Union Army in the Civil War, and a failed Mississippi plantation owner. Later in life he returned to his first profession and opened a pharmaceutical operation to manufacture drugs and sell them wholesale. Under Lilly’s early guidance, the company was the first to mass-produce gelatin capsules to hold medicines and the first to use fruit flavoring in liquid medicines.

33D Daisy kin : ASTER

Apparently, most aster species and cultivars bloom relatively late in the year, usually in the fall. The name “aster” comes into English via Latin from the Greek word “astéri” meaning “star”, a reference to the arrangement of the petals of the flower.

35D Maumee River endpoint : ERIE

The Maumee River forms at Fort Wayne, Indiana and flows for 137 miles through Indiana and Ohio, emptying into Lake Erie in Toledo, Ohio.

36D Honey brew : MEAD

Mead is a lovely drink that’s made from fermented honey and water.

39D Canola __ : OIL

Canola is a type of rapeseed, and Canola oil is made from the seeds. The particular cultivar used in oil production was developed in Canada, and the name Canola in fact comes from “CANadian Oil, Low Acid”.

40D Mausoleum on the Yamuna River : TAJ MAHAL

The Yamuna is a tributary of the Ganges in India. Just like the Ganges, many Hindus consider the Yamuna to be sacred. The list of cities on the river include Delhi (the nation’s capital) and Agra (home to the Taj Mahal).

54D Labor leader Chavez : CESAR

César Chávez was a Mexican American farm worker, and co-founder of the union today known as the United Farm Workers. Chávez was born in Yuma, Arizona, but moved to California as a child with his family. He never attended high school, dropping out to become a full-time migrant farm worker. In 1944, at 17 years of age, he joined the US Navy and served for two years. 5-6 years after returning from the military, back working as a farm laborer, Chávez became politically active and rose to national attention as an articulate union leader during some high profile strikes. He is remembered annually here in California on his birthday, March 31, which is a state holiday.

56D Unwelcome sound from a barber : OOPS

Our term “barber” comes to us via Anglo-French from the Latin “barba” meaning “beard”. Barbers originally offered a wide range of services, including surgery. Henry VIII restricted barbers to just haircutting … and dentistry!

58D Actress Swenson : INGA

Inga Swenson was an American actress. Her best known role was “Gretchen Kraus”, the German cook, and later housekeeper, on the TV show “Benson”. Swenson also appeared in a couple of episodes of “Bonanza” playing the second wife of Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene), and mother of Hoss Cartwright (Dan Blocker). This was despite the fact that in real life, she was actually 4 years younger than Blocker!

60D Monopoly payment : RENT

The commercial game of Monopoly is supposedly a remake of “The Landlord’s Game” created in 1903 by a Quaker woman named Lizzie Magie. Magie used her game as a tool to explain the single tax theory of American economist Henry George. The Landlord’s Game was first produced commercially in 1924. The incredibly successful derivative game called Monopoly was introduced in 1933 by Charles Darrow, who became a very rich man when Parker Brothers bought the rights to the game just two years later in 1935.