LA Times Crossword 4 Jun 26, Thursday

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Constructed by: Kathy Lowden

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Five Degrees of D_ST

Themed answers start with DxST, where x is a vowel progressing alphabetically as we descend the grid:

• 16A Evil actions of a cartoon villain, e.g. : DASTARDLY DEEDS
• 23A Having no chance of success : DESTINED TO FAIL
• 35A Forty-second cousin : DISTANT RELATIVE
• 50A Alyosha Karamazov, for one : DOSTOEVSKY HERO
• 56A Final touch for some desserts : DUSTING OF SUGAR

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

Bill’s time: 6m 36s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Millennial follower, briefly : GEN Z

Definitions vary, but it seems that the term “Generation Z” is reserved for the children of “Generation X”, and for the generation that follows the “Millennials” (Generation Y). Gen Zers are also known as “Zoomers”, a portmanteau of “Z” and “boomer” (as in “baby boomer”).

10A Sobriquet letters : AKA

Also known as (aka)

A sobriquet is an affectionate nickname. The term “sobriquet” is French, in which language it has the same meaning

19A __ de cologne : EAU

Back in 1709, an Italian perfume-maker moved to Cologne in Germany. There he invented a new fragrance that he named Eau de Cologne after his newly adopted town. The fragrance is still produced in Cologne, using a secret formulation. However, the terms “Eau de Cologne” and “cologne”, are now used generically.

21A Prefix with -metric : ISO

The word “isometric” comes from Greek, and means “having equal measurement”. Isometric exercise is a resistance exercise in which the muscle does not change in length (and the joint angle stays the same). The alternative would be dynamic exercises, ones using the joint’s full range of motion.

28A Greek letter that represents torque in equations : TAU

Torque can be thought of as a turning force, say the force needed to tighten a bolt or a nut. In physics, torque is represented by the Greek letter tau.

29A Gold medalist at the 1936 Summer Olympics : OWENS

Jesse Owens is famous for winning four gold medals at the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936, much to the chagrin of Adolf Hitler. Jesse’s real name was James Cleveland Owens, and he went by “JC” as a child. However, his Alabama accent was misconstrued at school when his family moved to Cleveland, so teachers and classmates called him “Jesse” instead of “JC”, and the name stuck.

31A __ mater : ALMA

The literal translation for the Latin term “alma mater” is “nourishing mother”. The phrase was used in ancient Rome to refer to mother goddesses, and in Medieval Christianity the term was used to refer to the Virgin Mary. Nowadays, one’s alma mater is the school one attended, either high school or college, usually one’s last place of education.

33A Grain in many a Quaker product : OAT

There used to be two varieties of Oh’s made by the Quaker Oats Company. One was Honey Nut Oh’s (later known as Crunchy Nut Oh’s), but it was phased out. The second type was called Crunchy Graham Oh’s, and it is still available today as Honey Graham Oh’s.

34A Card in an around-the-corner straight : ACE

A round-the-corner straight is a poker hand variant that uses the Ace as a “pivot” to bridge the highest and lowest ranks, e.g. Queen-King-Ace-Two-Three. Such a straight is popular in casual home games, but remains strictly illegal in standard tournament play.

41A Little newt : EFT

Newts wouldn’t be my favorite animals. They are found all over the world living on land or in water depending on the species, but always associated with water even if it is only for breeding. Newts metamorphose through three distinct developmental stages during their lives. They start off as larvae in water, fertilized eggs that often cling to aquatic plants. The eggs hatch into tadpoles, the first developmental form of the newt. After living some months as tadpoles swimming around in the water, they undergo another metamorphosis, sprouting legs and replacing their external gills with lungs. At this juvenile stage they are known as efts, and leave the water to live on land. A more gradual transition takes place then, as the eft takes on the lizard-like appearance of the adult newt.

43A One of a cereal trio : SNAP

Snap, Crackle and Pop are three elves employed as the mascots for Kellogg’s Rice Krispies. The trio first appeared in an ad campaign in 1933, although the phrase “snap, crackle and pop” had been used for the cereal for some time in radio ads. By the way, the elves are selling “Rice Bubbles” in Australia, and the elves have different names in other parts of the world (like “Cric!, Crac! and Ploc!” in Québec).

44A Thrash about : FLAIL

To flail about is to swing wildly, either literally or figuratively. The verb comes from the noun “flail”, which is an implement for threshing grain.

47A Cause of interrupted sleep, perhaps : APNEA

Sleep apnea (“apnoea” in British English) can be caused by an obstruction in the airways, possibly due to obesity or enlarged tonsils.

49A Ávila aunt : TIA

The Spanish city of Ávila is famous for the walled defenses around the old city (“la muralla de Ávila”) that date back to 1090. They were constructed out of brown granite, and are still in excellent repair. There are nine gateways and eighty-eight towers in all. Even the cathedral built between the 12th and 14th centuries is part of the city’s defenses, so it looks like an imposing fortress.

50A Alyosha Karamazov, for one : DOSTOEVSKY HERO

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s most famous novels are “Crime and Punishment” and “The Brothers Karamazov”. He was arrested in 1849 and sentenced to death by Tsar Nicholas I for being part of a liberal intellectual group. Dostoyevsky had to endure a mock execution before being told that his sentence was commuted to four years hard labor and exile in a camp at Omsk in Siberia.

“The Brothers Karamazov” was the last novel completed by Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky, as the author died just four months after it was published.

54A Viking weapon : AXE

The Vikings were a Germanic people from northern Europe who were noted as great seafarers. Key to the success of the Vikings was the design of their famous “longships”. Made from wood, the longship was long and narrow with a shallow hull, It was also light, so that the crew would actually carry it small distances over land and around obstacles. Longships were designed to be propelled by both sail and oars.

55A D-backs, in box scores : ARI

The Arizona Diamondbacks (also “D-backs”) joined Major League Baseball’s National League in 1998. By winning the World Series in 2001, they became the fastest expansion team to do so in Major League history.

65A Ivory soap ad word : PURE

Ivory soap is one of Procter & Gamble’s oldest products, introduced way back in 1879. Ivory soap is noted for its “purity” and also because of its property of floating in water. Despite urban myths to the contrary, the property of floating in water was developed deliberately by a chemist at the time Ivory was being formulated. The soap floats because the ingredients are mixed longer than necessary for homogenization, which introduces more air into the product.

66A Word in four state names : NEW

The four US states starting with the word “New” are:

• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• New York

67A Down-at-the-heels : SEEDY

We use the word “seedy” to mean “shabby”. The usage probably arose from the appearance of a flowering plant that has gone to seed.

To be down-at-the-heels is to be shabby, seedy. “Down-at-the-heels” originated in the 17th century as a literal description of footwear worn so thin that the back part of the shoe collapsed under the wearer’s weight. Back then, cobbler repairs were a significant expense, so walking on ruined heels served as a public statement of one’s financial decline.

Down

1D Mars or Mercury : GOD

Mars was the god of war in ancient Rome. He was also viewed as the father of the Roman people and the father of Romulus and Remus, the twin brothers who founded Rome according to Roman mythology.

Mercury was a Roman god called “the messenger”, and the god of trade. Mercury’s name comes from the Latin word “merx” meaning merchandise (and therefore has the same roots as “merchant” and “commerce”).

3D Tiny biters : NO-SEE-UMS

“No-see-um” is a familiar term used in North America for the small flies known as biting midges. We call them “midgies” in Ireland …

4D Followers of epsilons : ZETAS

Zeta is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet, and is a precursor of our Roman letter Z. The word “zeta” is also the ancestor of the letter name “zed”, which became “zee”, the term that we use here in the US.

5D Where to find a priest, a minister, and a rabbi? : BAR

A rabbi, a priest and a duck walk into a bar, and the bartender says, “What is this? A joke?”

6D “American Dream” band __ Soundsystem : LCD

“American Dream” is an album released by American rock band LCD Soundsystem. It was released in 2017, arriving six years after the band broke up after a farewell show in Madison Square Garden. I guess their fans were delighted to see the group back together, because “American Dream” became LCD Soundsystem’s first record to top the Billboard 200.

7D Early ISP : AOL

AOL was a leading internet service provider (ISP) in the 1980s and 1990s. The company finally discontinued its dial-up service in 2025.

8D Forest nymphs : DRYADS

In Greek mythology, dryads are tree nymphs. The term comes from the Greek “drys” meaning an oak tree, but “dryad” tends to be used for the nymphs of all trees and not just the oak variety.

11D Frazer Lake bear : KODIAK

The Kodiak bear is the biggest species of brown bear, and largest land-based predator in the world. Named for the Kodiak Archipelago in Alaska, the Kodiak bear grows to about the same size as the enormous polar bear.

Frazer Lake is located in the wilderness on Kodiak Island in Alaska. The lake’s outflow is Dog Salmon Creek, which is home to a massive waterfall. That waterfall prevented sockeye salmon from reaching Frazer Lake to spawn. To fix this, wildlife biologists backpacked over three million salmon eggs into the wilderness and later constructed a 33-foot fish ladder pass in 1962. Today, the lake hosts one of the most productive salmon runs in Alaska.

18D Beethoven’s Third : EROICA

Beethoven originally dedicated his “Symphony No. 3” to Napoleon Bonaparte. Beethoven admired the principles of the French Revolution and as such respected Bonaparte who was “born” out of the uprising. When Napoleon declared himself Emperor, Beethoven (and much of Europe) saw this as a betrayal to the ideals of the revolution so he changed the name of his new symphony from “Bonaparte” to “Eroica”, meaning “heroic, valiant”.

23D “Meditative Rose” artist : DALI

Salvador Dalí’s 1958 surrealist oil painting “Meditative Rose”. It features a stemless red rose floating in a blue sky above a desolate landscape. The rose is massive, especially compared to the tiny couple that Dali shows walking into the sunset.

27D Guitar bars : FRETS

A fret is a metal strip embedded in the neck of a stringed instrument, a guitar perhaps. The fingers press on the frets, shortening a string and hence changing the note played. The note increases by one semitone as a finger shortens a string by one fret.

34D Strike zone? : ALLEY

In bowling, a spare is recorded on a score sheet with a forward slash mark. A strike is recorded with a large letter X.

37D Kindle display : E INK

E Ink Corporation manufactures what is known as “electronic paper”, a material that is integrated into electronic displays used mainly in e-readers and smartphones. An example is the excellent display that comes with the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite e-reader.

39D Japanese laptop maker : VAIO

VAIO is a line of computers manufactured by Sony. The name was originally an acronym of Video Audio Integrated Operation, but this was changed to Visual Audio Intelligent Organizer on the occasion of the brand’s 10th anniversary in 2008.

40D Safe Drinking Water Act org. : EPA

1974’s Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) was a direct response to a 1970 study revealing that nearly half of US community water systems failed to meet even the basic health standards of the time. It protects the tap water of over 300 million people by regulating more than 90 distinct contaminants. Notably, the SDWA doesn’t cover private wells, nor bottled water.

44D New Deal pres. : FDR

The New Deal was the series of economic programs championed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in response to the Great Depression. It was focused on three objectives, the “3 Rs”:

1. Relief for the unemployed and poor
2. Recovery of the economy to normal levels
3. Reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression

45D “Sweeney Todd” setting : LONDON

“Sweeney Todd” was originally a 1936 film, later a 1973 play, then a 1979 musical, and then a movie adaptation of the musical in 2007. After Sweeney Todd has killed his victims, his partner in crime Mrs. Lovett helped him dispose of the bodies by taking the flesh and baking it into meat pies that she sold in her pie shop. Ugh!

48D “Eureka!” cries : AHAS!

“Eureka” translates from Greek as “I have found it”. The word is usually associated with Archimedes, uttered as he stepped into his bath one day. His discovery was that the volume of water that was displaced was equal to that of the object (presumably his foot) that had been submerged. He used this fact to determine volume (and density) of a crown, something he needed in order to determine if it was made of pure gold or was a forgery.

58D Former telecom co. : GTE

GTE was a rival to AT&T, the largest of the independent competitors to the Bell System. GTE merged with Bell Atlantic in 2000 to form the company that we know today as Verizon. Verizon made some high-profile acquisitions over the years, including MCI in 2005 and AOL in 2015.

59D 20-volume ref. work : OED

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) serves as a definitive 20-volume historical record of the English language, tracing word evolution from the mid-12th century. There is an abridged counterpart to the OED: the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED) is a two-volume publication (I own one; it is huge, and expensive!) that focuses on vocabulary used primarily since 1700. The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (Compact OED) offers the entire unabridged text through a micrographic printing process that fits the 20-volume set into a single volume. The print in the Compact OED is so small that it was bundled with its own magnifying glass!

60D First host of “Saturday Night Live UK” : FEY

Comic actress Tina Fey has a scar on her face a few inches long on her left cheek, which I was shocked to learn was caused by a childhood “slashing” incident. When she was just five years old and playing in the alley behind her house, someone just came up to her and slashed her with a knife. How despicable!

There have been several successful international versions of “Saturday Night Live”, including “SNL Korea”, Germany’s “RTL Samstag Nacht”. The first “official” US version of the show launched in March 2026 under the title “Saturday Night Live UK”. American fans would recognize the format, which includes a “Live from London!” yell at the start of the show.

62D Color of Lucky Charms balloons : RED

Lucky Charms is a General Mills breakfast cereal that first hit the shelves in 1964. The initial idea was to produce a cereal that brought to mind charms on a charm bracelet. The cereal’s mascot is a leprechaun whose original name was L. C. Leprechaun, then Sir Charms, and finally Lucky the Leprechaun.