LA Times Crossword 7 Dec 25, Sunday

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Constructed by: John Andrew Agpalo

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: Appendix

Themed answers sound like common phrases with an “IX” APPENDED:

22A Compensation for those expecting bad outcomes? : THE WAGES OF CYNICS (from “the wages of sin”)

32A Gem that’s been photoshopped? : BRUSHED-UP ONYX (from “brushed up on”)

50A Class that teaches the science behind flair bartending? : SLOE GIN PHYSICS (from “sloe gin fizz”)

70A Paper jam? : PRINTER’S REMIX (from “printer’s ream”)

90A Well-worn long tops? : FAMILIAR TUNICS (from “familiar tune”)

105A Genetic makeup of a Trojan war hero? : ACHILLES’ HELIX (from “Achilles’ heel”)

117A Message to a graduating class at an occult school? : YOU WILL BE MYSTICS (from “you will be missed”)

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

Bill’s time: 16m 39s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A “The Count of Monte Cristo” novelist : DUMAS

“The Count of Monte Cristo” is an 1844 novel by the French author Alexandre Dumas. Dumas’ other famous title is “The Three Musketeers”.

6A Gallagher of Oasis : LIAM

English singer and songwriter Liam Gallagher is best known as the confrontational frontman of the 1990s Britpop band Oasis. He and his brother Noel, the band’s songwriter, were famous for their public sibling rivalry, which eventually led to the band’s split in 2009.

14A Queue before Q : LGBT

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning (LGBTQ)

19A Meat dish topped with mashed potatoes : COTTAGE PIE

Shepherd’s pie, also known as “cottage pie”, is one of my favorite dishes. It is a meat pie (although my wife makes a vegetarian version), with a crust made from mashed potato. Yum …

22A Compensation for those expecting bad outcomes? : THE WAGES OF CYNICS (from “the wages of sin”)

The consequences of evildoing might be described as “the wages of sin”. The phrase comes from the Epistle to the Romans in the Christian New Testament.

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

31A Iguana, to some : PET

Iguanas have what is known as a “third eye” on their heads. Known as the parietal eye, it can sense levels of light, although it cannot make out details.

32A Gem that’s been photoshopped? : BRUSHED-UP ONYX (from “brushed up on”)

Onyx is a form of quartz that comes in many different shades, but most often it’s the black version that’s used for jewelry. The name “onyx” comes from the Greek word for “fingernail”, as onyx in the flesh color is said to resemble a fingernail.

36A LuPone of “Agatha All Along” : PATTI

Singer Patti LuPone won Tonys for playing Eva Peron in “Evita ” and Rose in “Gypsy”.

“Agatha All Along” is a dark comedy miniseries set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It is a spin-off from “WandaVision” (about Scarlet Witch and Vision), delving deeper into the backstory of the witch Agatha Harkness, played by Kathryn Hahn. Following the events of “WandaVision,” Agatha finds herself stripped of her powers and trapped in a New Jersey town under a magical spell.

38A Croc, but not gator : SHOE

Crocs are foam clogs that were originally designed as shoes to be worn at health spas. I bought a pair of crocs, and then my kids said they weren’t going to talk to me again …

40A Jalapeño kin : SERRANO

The serrano chili pepper is native to the mountainous regions of the Mexican states of Puebla and Hidalgo. The name “serrano” comes from the Spanish “sierra” meaning “mountain”.

41A Front covers? : APRONS

In Old French, a “naperon” was a “small table-cloth”. The term was absorbed into English as “napron”, describing a cloth used to cover the front of a person at work. Over time, “a napron” was heard as “an apron”, giving us our contemporary noun “apron”.

43A Cartography collection : ATLAS

Cartography is the art of producing maps.

47A Browning’s “__ Lippo Lippi” : FRA

Fra Filippo Lippi was an Italian painter in the 15th century who was also called “Lippo Lippi”, would you believe? The Victorian poet Robert Browning used the artist as the main character in a dramatic monologue he called “Fra Lippo Lippi”.

50A Class that teaches the science behind flair bartending? : SLOE GIN PHYSICS (from “sloe gin fizz”)

By definition, a cocktail known as a “fizz” includes lemon or lime juice and carbonated water. The most popular of the genre is the gin fizz, made from 3 parts gin, 2 parts lemon juice, 1 part sugar syrup and 5 parts soda water. There is also a variant known as a sloe gin fizz.

56A Rep. group : GOP

The Republican Party has had the nickname Grand Old Party (GOP) since 1875. That said, the phrase was coined in the “Congressional Record” as “this gallant old party”. The moniker was changed to “grand old party” in 1876 in an article in the “Cincinnati Commercial”. The Republican Party’s elephant mascot dates back to an 1874 cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast for “Harper’s Weekly”. The Democrat’s donkey was already an established symbol. Nast drew a donkey clothed in a lion’s skin scaring away the other animals. One of the scared animals was an elephant, which Nast labeled “The Republican Vote”.

57A Pottery supplies : CLAYS

Clay is a naturally-occurring soil material that becomes moldable when wet, and hardens when fired in a kiln. That makes it a ceramic material, the oldest known ceramic used by humans.

60A Dramamine target : NAUSEA

Dramamine is a brand name for dimenhydrinate, a drug used to counteract motion sickness. It’s an antihistamine that works by blocking the signals from your inner ear (which senses motion) to the part of your brain that controls the nausea reflex.

64A Shoulder ornament : EPAULET

An epaulet (also “epaulette”) is an ornamental shoulder pad, particularly one worn with a military uniform. The term “epaulet”comes from French, and translates literally as “little shoulder”.

70A Paper jam? : PRINTER’S REMIX (from “printer’s ream”)

A ream is 500 sheets of paper. As there were 24 sheets in a quire, and 20 quires made up a ream, there used to be 480 sheets in a ream. Ever since the standard was changed to 500, a 480-sheet packet of paper has been called a “short ream”. We also use the term “reams” to mean a great amount, evolving from the idea of a lot of printed material.

74A Stuffed meat dish : ROULADE

A roulade is made by wrapping a slice of meat around a filling prior to cooking. The name “roulade” comes from the French “rouler” meaning “to roll”.

77A Tiltrotor military aircraft : OSPREY

The V-22 Osprey is a unique military aircraft with tiltrotors, propellers that can pivot from horizontal (like an airplane) to vertical (like a helicopter). This allows it to take off and land like a helicopter but fly with the high speed and long range of a conventional airplane.

79A Writer Bombeck : ERMA

Erma Bombeck wrote for newspapers for about 35 years. She produced more than 4,000 witty and humorous columns under the title “At Wit’s End”, with all describing her home life in suburbia.

80A Boondi __: spiced yogurt dish : RAITA

Raita is a yogurt-based condiment from South Asia, similar to a dip or sauce. Boondi Raita is a version in which boondi (tiny, fried chickpea-flour balls) are soaked and mixed into the spiced yogurt.

82A Dead __ Scrolls : SEA

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered over a period of years, between 1947 and 1956, in eleven caves (the Qumran Caves) on the shores of the Dead Sea. The scrolls are believed to have been written by an ancient Jewish sect called the Essenes, although this has been called into question recently. Many of the texts are copies of writings from the Hebrew Bible.

87A With all judges present : EN BANC

“En banc” is a French term, translating as “on a bench”. It refers to the cases in which all the judges of a court hear a case, as opposed to a case heard just by a panel, a subset of the full complement. The phrase is sometimes written as “in banc” in the US.

94A Opposite of paleo- : NEO-

The prefix “paleo-” means “prehistoric, primitive”. It comes from the Greek word “palaios” which means “old, ancient”. The prefix “neo-” would be the opposite, meaning “new, recent”.

97A Glinda, to Elphaba, at first : ENEMY

In the stage musical “Wicked”, Glinda is the Good Witch of the South, and Elphaba is the Wicked Witch of the West.

In the original “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” books, the Wicked Witch of the West character was never named. The author of 1995’s “Wicked”, Gregory Maguire, invented the name “Elphaba” for his novel. He based it on the phonetic pronunciation of the original “Oz” author’s initials: L. Frank Baum (L-F-B).

102A Ikebana vessel : VASE

The Japanese art of flower arranging is very much focused on minimalism, the use of a minimum number of blooms arranged among a few stalks and leaves. The Japanese name for the art is “ikebana”, which can be translated as “making flowers alive”.

105A Genetic makeup of a Trojan war hero? : ACHILLES’ HELIX (from “Achilles’ heel”)

Achilles is the protagonist in Homer’s “Iliad”. When Achilles was born, his mother attempted to make him immortal by dipping him into the River Styx. As he was held by the heel while under the water, this became the only vulnerable point on his body (his Achilles’ heel”). Years later he was killed when a poisoned arrow struck him in the heel. That arrow was shot by Paris.

Famously, James Watson and Francis Crick worked out the structure of DNA as a double helix. Well, it turns out that some strands of DNA can twist into different shapes. For example, the DNA at the ends of our chromosomes can form a rectangular structure called a triplex or quadruplex.

109A Lentil dish : DAL

I love dal dishes, which are prepared from various peas or beans (often lentils) that have been stripped of their outer skins and split. Dal is an important part of Indian cuisines. I suppose in Indian terms, split pea soup (another of my favorites) would be called a dal.

112A LASIK target : CORNEA

The cornea is the transparent part of the eye in the front, and the part that covers the iris and the pupil. Even though the cornea is not part of the eye’s lens, it acts as a lens. In fact, the cornea does most of the work focusing light coming in through the eye. It is, in effect, a fixed-focus lens passing on light to the variable-focus lens that is inside the eye.

LASIK surgery uses a laser to reshape the cornea of the eye to improve vision. The LASIK acronym stands for “laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis”.

113A Lennox of R&B : ARI

“Ari Lennox” is the stage name of R&B singer Courtney Salter. In choosing her stage name, Salter was influenced by a character named Mary Lennox in the 1993 movie version of “The Secret Garden”.

114A Hindu god with the head of an elephant : GANESH

Ganesha (also “Ganesh”) is a Hindu deity usually depicted with the head of an elephant. He is widely revered as the “Remover of Obstacles” and the “Lord of Beginnings”. He is worshipped before any major undertaking, symbolizing wisdom, prosperity, and good fortune.

117A Message to a graduating class at an occult school? : YOU WILL BE MYSTICS (from “you will be missed”)

The adjective “occult” means “secret, beyond the realm of human comprehension”. The term derives from the Latin “occultus” meaning “hidden, concealed”.

124A Tibetan monk : LAMA

“Lama” is a Tibetan word meaning “chief, high priest”.

125A Sine qua nons : ESSENTIALS

“Sine qua non” is a Latin phrase that we use to mean “the essential element or condition”. The literal translation is “without which not”. One might say, for example, “a challenging crossword is the sine qua non of a good newspaper”. Well, crossword fans might say that …

126A Kevin McHale’s “Glee” role : ARTIE

Artie Abrams is a character in the Fox television show “Glee”. He is played by the young actor Kevin McHale, and is the character who gets around in a wheelchair.

127A Serpents on sarcophagi : ASPS

A sarcophagus is a stone or wooden box in which a body is interred. “Sarcophagus” is Greek for “flesh-eating stones”. The name was applied as a sarcophagus was often made from a kind of limestone that was believed to cause the flesh of corpses to decompose.

128A Frost’s “The __ Not Taken” : ROAD

Robert Frost had a poem published in 1916 in which he describes the road he took in the last lines:

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Because of these last lines, the poem is often assumed to be titled “The Road Less Traveled”. In fact, the poem’s correct name is “The Road Not Taken”. Quite interesting …

Down

1D Who __ Nation: Saints fans : DAT

The entire community of fans of the New Orleans Saints are sometimes referred to as the “Who Dat Nation”. The name comes from a popular chant heard at a Saints game:

Who dat?
Who dat?
Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?

3D Turbulent situation : MAELSTROM

A maelstrom is a violent or turbulent situation, or a very large whirlpool. “Maelstrom” is derived from the name of a notorious whirlpool located off the northwest coast of Norway.

4D Japanese consumer electronics brand : AIWA

Aiwa was a Japanese company that produced consumer electronics, mainly audio and video equipment. Sony bought Aiwa in 2002 and eventually discontinued the brand in 2006. The Aiwa trademark was acquired by a Chicago-based consumer electronics company in 2015.

5D __ turtle : SNAPPING

Snapping turtles are quite aggressive and have the ability to “snap” with their relatively powerful jaws. They exhibit this behavior especially when out of the water.

7D 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.

8D Org. with bomb-sniffing dogs : ATF

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) today is part of the Department of Justice (DOJ). The ATF has its roots in the Department of Treasury dating back to 1886 when it was known as the Bureau of Prohibition. “Explosives” was added to the ATF’s name when the bureau was moved under the Department of Justice (DOJ) as part of the reorganization called for in the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

9D One spelling of an Asian gambling hub : MACAU

Macau (also “Macao”) is an autonomous territory of China located on the Pearl River estuary about 40 miles west of Hong Kong. It was a Portuguese colony from the mid-1500s until 1999. Macau was in fact the first European colony in China, and the last, having been handed back to the Chinese in 1999, two years after Hong Kong was returned by the British. Macau’s economy is driven by tourism and gambling. The territory’s gaming revenue is the highest for any gambling center in the world.

10D Column that’s beside the point? : TENTHS

The decimal separator in a number written in decimal form is the symbol that separates the integer part of the number from the fractional part. Here in the US, we tend to use a decimal point for that separation. In Central Europe, a decimal comma is the norm.

11D Bee fore? : API-

Something described as apian is related to bees. “Apis” is Latin for “bee”.

12D Actor Cage, casually : NIC

Actor Nicolas “Nic” Cage was born Nicolas Coppola. Cage is the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire, both of whom are Nic Cage’s father’s siblings.

14D McCartney’s songwriting partner : LENNON

John Lennon and Paul McCartney made an agreement before they became famous that they would always give joint credit for their songs. In the early days, the duo wrote their songs together, working alongside each other. Soon they would write songs individually, with one giving the other limited input. Regardless, the Lennon-McCartney attribution was used for all the songs they wrote either individually or together right up to 1974. The partnership was officially dissolved in December 1974, in the Polynesian Resort in Walt Disney World, Florida. There, John Lennon put his signature to official documents couriered to him by Apple’s lawyers (Apple being the Beatles record label).

15D Application for dubious advice : GRAIN OF SALT

To take something with a grain of salt is to view something skeptically. On the other side of the Atlantic, the same meaning is expressed using “pinch of salt”. A grain was an old unit of weight equal to about 65 mg, which approximates how much table salt one might pick up by pinching together one’s fingers.

17D Email ancestor : TELEX

Telex grew out of the world of the telegraph. What telex brought to telegraphy was the ability to route messages. Instead of having to talk to an operator to route a particular message to the intended party, the user of a telex could route the message directly to another telex machine by way of a rotary dial, one very similar to that on a telephone.

19D Irish speakers, e.g. : CELTS

The Celts are a very broad group of people across Europe who are linked by common languages. The original Celts were largely absorbed by other cultures, although a relatively modern revival of the “Celtic identity” is alive and well in Britain and Ireland. Such Celtic peoples today are mainly found in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany in France.

28D Visual style that tricks the eye : OP ART

Op art is also known as optical art, and puts optical illusions to great effect.

30D __ syrup : MAPLE

About 75% of the world’s maple syrup comes from the province of Quebec. The US’s biggest producer is the state of Vermont, which produces 5-6% of the world’s supply.

35D Rapper Dr. __ : DRE

“Dr. Dre” is the stage name of rapper Andre Romelle Young. He is known for his own singing career as well as for producing records and starting the careers of others such as Snoop Dogg, Eminem and 50 Cent.

37D Front-wheel alignment : TOE-IN

In the world of car maintenance, “toe” is also known as “tracking”, the angle a wheel makes relative to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle.

42D Brynhild’s beloved, in Norse myth : SIGURD

According to Norse mythology, the hero Sigurd (also “Siegfried”) rode through a ring of fire to awaken the Valkyrie Brynhild (also “Brünnhilde”). They fell in love, but their story turns tragic when Sigurd is given a magic potion that makes him forget her, leading to betrayal and both their deaths. This epic myth of love, magic, and betrayal is the primary source material for Richard Wagner’s famous opera cycle “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (The Ring of the Nibelung).

52D African capital : CAIRO

Cairo is the capital city of Egypt. It is nicknamed “The City of a Thousand Minarets” because of its impressive skyline replete with Islamic architecture. The name “Cairo” is a European corruption of the city’s original name in Arabic, “Al-Qahira”.

54D Tempe sch. : ASU

Arizona State University (ASU) has a long history, and was founded as the Tempe Normal School for the Arizona Territory in 1885. The athletic teams of ASU used to be known as the Normals, then the Bulldogs, and since 1946 they’ve been called the Sun Devils.

58D Start of the Marine Corps motto : SEMPER

“Semper Fidelis” (often abbreviated to “Semper Fi”) is the motto of the United States Marine Corps (USMC). The phrase is Latin and means “Always Faithful”. The US Marine Corps isn’t the only military unit using “Semper Fidelis” as a motto. It’s also used by the Portuguese Marine Corps, the Republic of China Marine Corps and the Swiss Grenadiers.

61D Therapists’ org. : APA

American Psychiatric Association (APA)

62D Bright spots? : ATRIA

In modern architecture, an atrium (plural “atria” or “atriums”) is a large open space usually in the center of a building and extending upwards to the roof. The original atrium was an open court in the center of an Ancient Roman house. One could access most of the enclosed rooms of the house from the atrium.

66D Body spray brand : AXE

Axe Body Spray was launched in France in 1983 under the name “Ego.” The brand was later rebranded as Axe in 1996 and introduced in the United States.

69D Cocktail ingredient : JUMBO SHRIMP

The terms “prawn” and “shrimp” are often used interchangeably on menus. Over in the UK, the term “prawn” is most common, while “shrimp” is seen more often here in North America. Sometimes there is a differentiation from a food standpoint, with “prawn” being used for larger species and “shrimp” for smaller species. As a result, “jumbo prawns” seems to be an acceptable descriptor for a dish, whereas “jumbo shrimp” seems to be an oxymoron.

71D Wonderland cake words : EAT ME

In Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, Alice follows the white rabbit down a rabbit hole and finds a bottle labeled “DRINK ME”. When she drinks the contents, it causes her to shrink. She also sees a cake adorned with the words “EAT ME” written using currants, and when she eats the cake she grows so big she finds it hard to stand up. After eating the cake, she utters the words, “Curiouser and curiouser”.

72D Contents of college blue books : ESSAYS

“Blue book exam” is a term used for a test given at many colleges in the US. Blue book exams usually involve the writing of essays. The first blue book exams were administered by Butler University in Indianapolis, and the “blue” was chosen because Butler’s school colors are blue and white. The color blue is still commonly used regardless of which school is giving the test, although other colors can be used.

75D Trout’s team, on scoreboards : LAA

Mike Trout debuted as a professional baseball player for the Los Angeles Angels in 2011. Trout’s nickname is “the Millville Meteor”, as he grew up in Millville, New Jersey.

78D Gossipy person : YENTA

“Yenta” (also “Yente”) is actually a female Yiddish name. In Yiddish theater “yenta” came to mean a busybody, a gossip.

84D Carrier in French Polynesia : AIR TAHITI

Air Tahiti is a French airline operating in French Polynesia. The company was founded in 1950 with one plane ferrying passengers between islands. The name was changed in 1953 to “RAI” (abbreviation for “Inter-Island Aviation Network”, in French). The airline rebranded in 1970 and adopted the name “Air Polynesia”. The Air Tahiti name reappeared in 1985.

French Polynesia (Polynésie française) is a vast overseas territory of France that is located in the South Pacific Ocean. It comprises 118 islands and atolls dispersed over 1,609 square miles, the most populous being Tahiti.

85D Performs like Ella : SCATS

Scat singing is a vocal improvisation found in the world of jazz. There aren’t any words as such in scat singing, just random nonsense syllables made up on the spot.

86D Awards for excellent plays and players : ESPYS

The ESPY Awards, also known as the Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards, were first presented in a ceremony in 1993. They were created by ESPN as a response to the lack of sports coverage during the summer months. ESPN decided to create an awards show to help fill that gap.

88D Aristocratic : NOBLE

An aristocracy is a state in which the power of government is placed in the hands of a privileged few. The term “aristocracy” ultimately comes from the Greek “aristos” meaning “excellent” and “kratos” meaning “rule”. In ancient Greece, aristocracy was compared favorably with a monarchy, the idea being that the best-qualified few would serve better than an individual who inherited power. More recently, particularly during the French Revolution, aristocracy has been compared unfavorably with democracy.

91D __ Strauss & Co. : LEVI

Levi Strauss was the founder of the first company in the world to manufacture blue jeans. Levi Strauss & Co. opened in 1853 in San Francisco. Strauss and his business partner were awarded a patent in 1873 for the use of copper rivets to strengthen points of strain on working pants.

92D Big-screen movie format : IMAX

The IMAX Corporation, which is behind the IMAX film format, is a Canadian company. The impetus for developing the system came after Expo ’67 in Montreal. Back then large format screenings were accomplished using multiple projectors with multiple screens, with images basically stitched together. The team behind the IMAX technology set out to simplify things, and developed a single-camera, single-projector system.

93D 119-Down figure : UNCLE SAM
119D Country that turns 250 years old in 2026: Abbr. : USA

The Uncle Sam personification of the United States was first used during the War of 1812. The term was so widely accepted that even the Germans used it during WWII, choosing the code word “Samland” for “America” in intelligence communiques.

The Declaration of Independence, adopted on 4 July 1776, refers to “these United Colonies”. The nation name “United States” was not adopted by the Continental Congress until September 9th of the same year.

100D Range that includes Utah’s Kings Peak : UINTAS

The Uinta Mountains are a subrange of the Rocky Mountains located mainly in northeastern Utah, approximately 100 miles east of Salt Lake City. The highest point in the Uintas is Kings Peak, the highest point in Utah.

103D Cheeses from the Netherlands : EDAMS

Edam cheese takes its name from the Dutch town of Edam in North Holland. The cheese is famous for its coating of red paraffin wax, a layer of protection that helps Edam travel well and prevents spoiling. You might occasionally come across an Edam cheese that is coated in black wax. The black color indicates that the underlying cheese has been aged for a minimum of 17 weeks.

105D Fast Amtrak train : ACELA

The Acela is the fastest train in the Americas, and can reach a top speed of 160 miles per hour, However, it only does so for about 40 miles of its 457-mile route between D.C. and Boston. Due to the curvy nature of the Northeast Corridor tracks, the train’s average speed over the entire journey, including stops, is closer to 70 mph.

106D Musical conclusions : CODAS

In music, a coda is primarily a passage that brings a movement to a conclusion. “Coda” is Italian for “tail”.

107D Pam’s successor on “The Office” : ERIN

Actress Ellie Kemper’s big break came with the role of Erin Hannon, a receptionist on the sitcom “The Office”. More recently, Kemper played the title role in the Netflix comedy series “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”.

In the excellent sitcom “The Office”, the character Pam Halpert (née Beesly) is played very ably by Jenna Fischer. If you’ve seen the original version of “The Office” from the UK, then you’d have met Pam’s equivalent character, whose name is Dawn Tinsley.

114D Coins in a game of dreidel : GELT

“Gelt” is the Yiddish word for “money”.

A dreidel is a spinning top with four sides that is often associated with the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. Each of the four sides on a dreidel bears a letter from the Hebrew alphabet (nun, gimel, hei and shin). The four letters are the initials of the Hebrew phrase “Nes Gadol Hayah Sham” meaning “a great miracle happened there”. According to tradition, children would be taught Torah while hiding in caves away from the Greeks. When Greek soldiers approached, the children would hide their torah scrolls and play with their dreidels instead.

115D Houston MLBer : ‘STRO

The Houston baseball team changed its name to the Astros (sometimes “’Stros”) from the Colt .45s in 1965 when they started playing in the Astrodome. The Astrodome was so called in recognition of the city’s long association with the US space program. The Astros moved from the National League to the American League starting in the 2013 season.

122D Not trans : CIS

In Latin, the prefix “cis-” means “this side of”. The prefix “trans-” means “the other side of”.