Tag: Amazon basin bean crossword clue

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Constructed by: Katie Hale

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Fall Collection

Today’s COLLECTION of themed answers all end with a synonym of “FALL”:

• 54A Fashion house release with autumnal colors, or what the ends of 20-, 34-, and 41-Across are : FALL COLLECTION

• 20A Official clearance to miss class : PERMISSION SLIP
• 34A Perform dramatic flips down a sprung track : POWER TUMBLE
• 41A Outdoor family getaway : CAMPING TRIP

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

Bill’s time: 5m 17s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5A Olivia Rodrigo album with the hit “Vampire” : GUTS

2023’s “Vampire” was the lead single from Olivia Rodrigo’s second album “Guts”. The lyrics refer to an older man that she dated, who would “only come out at night”. This “vampire” was also a bloodsucker, who bled her dry.

14A Nike’s Swoosh, for one : LOGO

I remember seeing a lady named Carolyn Davidson on the television show “I’ve Got a Secret”. Davidson created the Nike “swoosh” back in 1971 when she was a design student at Portland State. She did it as freelance work for Blue Ribbon Sports, a local company introducing a new line of athletic footwear. The “swoosh” is taken from the wing of the Greek goddess of victory, Nike. Years later, BRS changed its name to Nike, so I suppose the company should be grateful to Carolyn for both the great design, and a great company name.

17A Wall St. investment opportunities : IPOS

An initial public offering (IPO) is the very first offer of stock for sale by a company on the open market. In other words, an IPO marks the first time that a company is traded on a public exchange. Companies have an IPO to raise capital to expand (usually).

18A “The Keep” novelist Jennifer : EGAN

2006’s “The Keep” is a gothic thriller novel by Jennifer Egan. It is structured as a story-within-a-story penned by a convicted murderer enrolled in a writing workshop in a high-security prison. There’s a lot of supernatural phenomena in this one, so not for me …

19A Makers of mysterious footprints in the Himalayas : YETIS

The magnificent Himalaya range of mountains in Asia takes its name from the Sanskrit for “abode of snow”. Geographically, the Himalaya separates the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau to the north.

23A Little hellion : IMP

A hellion is a mischievous and wild person. “Hellion” is a North American term, one probably derived from the word that we use for the same thing on the other side of the Atlantic, namely “hallion”.

24A Basketball three-pointer : TREY

A trey is a three in a deck of cards. The term “trey” can also be used for a domino with three pips, and even for a three-point shot in basketball.

33A NHL great Bobby : ORR

Bobby Orr is a Boston Bruins legend universally considered one of the greatest hockey players of all time. Famously, he is the only defenseman in NHL history to win the league scoring title.

34A Perform dramatic flips down a sprung track : POWER TUMBLE

Power tumbling is a gymnastics discipline in which athletes execute a sequence of flips, twists, and bounds down a 25-meter elevated, sprung track. It made it to the Olympics as an event just once, in the 1932 Summer Games, and was only for male athletes.

37A CBS military law drama : NCIS

The “NCIS” franchise of military police procedurals was launched in 2003 with the original “NCIS” TV show. The franchise really grew over time:

1. “NCIS: Los Angeles” (2009)
2. “NCIS: New Orleans” (2014)
3. “NCIS: Hawaiʻi” (2021)
4. “NCIS: Sydney” (2023)
5. “NCIS: Origins” (2024)
6. “NCIS: Tony & Ziva” (2025)

40A Nintendo consoles with balance boards : WIIS

When Nintendo introduced the very popular Wii Fit video “game” in 2007, the Wii Balance Board peripheral was unveiled at the same time. The Balance Board is a pressure-sensitive device that allows users to control on-screen avatars by shifting their center of gravity.

46A Actress Dennings : KAT

Kat Dennings is the stage name of actress Katherine Litwack, who is noted today for her co-starring role on CBS’s sitcom “2 Broke Girls”. On the big screen, she plays the somewhat humorous character Dr. Darcy Lewis in the “Thor” series of films. Dennings is an avid blogger, and you can check out her video blog on YouTube.

47A Madrid’s nación : ESPANA

In Spanish, Madrid is the capital of the “nación de España” (nation of Spain).

Spain is the second largest country in the European Union (after France). “Spain” is an anglicized form of the Spanish name “España”, which comes from the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula “Hispania”.

53A Bowling pin count : TEN

Bowling has been around for an awfully long time. The oldest known reference to the game is in Egypt, where pins and balls were found in an ancient tomb that is over 5,000 years old. The first form of the game to come to America was nine-pin bowling, which had been very popular in Europe for centuries. In 1841 in Connecticut, nine-pin bowling was banned due to its association with gambling. Supposedly, an additional pin was added to get around the ban, and ten-pin bowling was born.

61A Amazon basin bean : CACAO

The flowers of the cacao tree grow in clusters, directly on the trunk and on older branches. The pollinated flowers turn into ovoid cacao pods, each of which contain 20-60 seeds or beans. The seeds are used as the main ingredient in chocolate.

63A Org. with a “Know Your Rights” handbook : ACLU

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was established in 1920 by a group of activists, including Helen Keller and Roger Baldwin, to defend the Bill of Rights during the post-WWI First Red Scare. The organization rose to national prominence in 1925 when it represented defendant John Scopes in the “Monkey Trial”, a landmark case centered on the teaching of evolution in schools.

66A Bog material : PEAT

When dead plant matter accumulates in marshy areas, it may not fully decay due to a lack of oxygen or acidic conditions. We are familiar with this in Ireland, because what can form then is peat. If the peat bogs get covered over with sedimentary matter, over time pressure and heat can dry out the peat forming a soft brown material called lignite. Given further heat and pressure, and time, lignite converts to coal. So, lignite is a material with characteristics between peat and coal, and is often called “brown coal”.

67A Black tea variety : ASSAM

Assam, located in northeastern India, is the largest tea-producing state in the country. It is also famous for its silk production, particularly the golden muga silk.

Down

3D “The Rite of Spring” composer Stravinsky : IGOR

“The Rite of Spring” (“Le Sacre du Printemps” in French) is a ballet and orchestral work by Igor Stravinsky. The ballet premiered in Paris in 1913 and was received very, very poorly as the music and dancing was quite avant-garde. Since then, “The Rite of Spring” has become an extremely influential work, but to be honest, it’s not a favorite of mine …

4D Astronomical : COSMIC

The term “cosmos” traces its roots back to the ancient Greek word “kosmos”, which originally translated to “order, harmonious arrangement” and even “ornament”. So, both “cosmos” and “cosmetics” share the same linguistic root! The philosopher Pythagoras is credited with being the first to apply “cosmos” to the universe, proposing that the physical world is governed by a beautifully structured, mathematical harmony rather than unpredictable chaos. Interesting …

6D Fluffy winter boots : UGGS

Uggs are sheepskin boots that were first produced in Australia and New Zealand. The original Uggs have sheepskin fleece on the inside for comfort and insulation, with a tanned leather surface on the outside for durability. “Ugg” is a generic term Down Under, although it’s a brand name here in the US.

10D Eve’s second son : ABEL

According to the Bible, Adam and Eve had several children, although only the first three are mentioned by name: Cain, Abel and Seth.

22D Wasp’s home : NEST

While wasps are considered a nuisance by many, they are very important to the agricultural industry. Wasps prey on many pest insects, while having very little impact on crops.

25D Two-tone ocean predators : ORCAS

The orca (killer whale) has a unique “saddle patch” just behind its dorsal fin: a gray-white mark that acts much like a human fingerprint. Marine biologists use the specific shape and scarring of this patch to track individual whales across decades.

27D __ bag: party favors : SWAG

Swag is loot, stolen property, and a term that started out as criminal slang in England in the 1830s. “Swag” is also the name given to the promotional freebies available at some events. That said, there’s an urban myth that the promotional version of “swag” is an acronym standing for “stuff we all get”.

29D Audi competitor : BMW

The initialism “BMW” stands for “Bayerische Motoren Werke”, which translates into Bavarian Motor Works. BMW was making aircraft engines during WWI, but had to cease that activity according to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The company then started making motorcycles, and moved into automobile production starting in 1928. BMW moved back into aircraft engine manufacturing during the build-up of the Luftwaffe prior to WWII.

31D Homeric saga about the Trojan War : ILIAD

The ancient city of Troy was located on the west coast of modern-day Turkey. The Trojan War of Greek mythology was precipitated by the elopement of Helen, the wife of the king of Sparta, with Paris of Troy. The war itself largely consisted of a ten-year siege of Troy by the Greeks. We know most about the final year of that siege, as it is described extensively in Homer’s “Iliad”. The city eventually fell when the Greeks hid soldiers inside the Trojan Horse, which the Trojans brought inside the city’s walls. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts …

45D Fraction of a min. : PSEC

A picosecond is one trillionth of a second, and is correctly abbreviated to “ps” in the SI system of measurements. I guess that’s what “psec” is meant to be …

51D Major artery : AORTA

The aorta is the largest artery in the human body. It carries oxygen-rich blood from the heart to the rest of the body. Even though it is a single vessel, it is divided into four main sections: the ascending aorta, the aortic arch, the thoracic aorta, and the abdominal aorta.

56D Video game archaeologist Croft : LARA

Lara Croft was introduced to the world in 1996 as the main character in a pretty cool video game (or so I thought, back then) called “Tomb Raider”. Lara Croft moved to the big screen in 2001 and 2003, in two pretty awful movie adaptations of the game’s storyline. Angelina Jolie played Croft, and she did a very energetic job.

59D Regenerist brand : OLAY

Oil of Olay was developed in South Africa in 1952. When Oil of Olay was introduced internationally, it was given slightly different brand names designed to appeal in the different geographies. In Ireland we know it as Oil of Ulay, for example, and in France it is Oil of Olaz.

61D Spy org. : CIA

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the successor to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed during WWII. The CIA was chartered by the National Security Act of 1947. The organization is often referred to familiarly as “the Company”.