Tag: Senior member crossword clue

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Constructed by: Susan Gelfand
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Swordplay

Themed answers each start with an anagram of a SWORD:

• 56A Art of fencing, and a hint to the starts of the answers to the starred clues : SWORDPLAY

• 17A *Baklava base : FILO DOUGH (starts with “FOIL” play)
• 28A *Gives testimony : BEARS WITNESS (starts with “SABER” play)
• 42A *Fix-it guide : REPAIR MANUAL (starts with “RAPIER” play)

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

Bill’s time: 6m 10s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 State gem of Wyoming : JADE

“Jade” is actually the name given to two different mineral rocks, both of which are used to make gemstones. The first is nephrite, a mineral with a varying degree of iron content, the more iron the greener the color. The second is jadeite, a sodium and aluminum-rich pyroxene. As well as being used for gemstones, both jade minerals can be carved into decorative pieces.

17 *Baklava base : FILO DOUGH (starts with “FOIL” play)

Filo (also “phyllo”) is an extremely thin unleavened dough used in Middle Eastern and Balkan cuisines. The most famous dish made from filo is baklava, a rich and sweet pastry made from layers of filo filled with chopped nuts and held together with syrup.

Baklava is a very sweet and rich (and delicious) dessert pastry made from layers of filo dough filled with nuts and sweetened with honey or syrup. The name “baklava” comes from the Ottoman Turkish name for the pastry.

Before the foil was introduced as a sporting weapon, it was used as a blunted weapon for sword practice. It has been suggested that the sword was blunted by wrapping metal foil around the tip, hence the name.

19 Spiral-horned antelope : ELAND

The eland (plural “eland, elands”) is a large African antelope, in fact the largest antelope on the planet. Both male and female eland have horns, and those horns have a steady spiral ridge along their length.

20 Craft brewer’s concoction : ALE

To decoct is to extract the flavor of a liquid by boiling down and increasing the concentration. A related term is “to concoct”, meaning “to boil together”. We use the verb “to concoct” in a figurative sense to mean to contrive, devise.

23 Taylor Swift album with the hit “All Too Well” : RED

“All Too Well” is a 2012 song co-written and recorded by Taylor Swift. Swift’s fans love this tune, and many regard it as her finest song. It deals with a relationship that’s over. There’s a scarf mentioned in the song a couple of times. At the beginning of the lyrics:

and I left my scarf there at your sister’s house

Towards the end of the song:

But you keep my old scarf from that very first week

Well, the scarf has become a “thing”. The assumption is the relationship is between Swift and her one-time boyfriend Jake Gyllenhall. Multiple hours of airtime have been devoted to answering the question, “Where is the scarf now?”

24 “C’est la __!” : VIE

“C’est la vie” is French for “that’s life”.

28 *Gives testimony : BEARS WITNESS (starts with “SABER” play)

A saber (sometimes “sabre”) is a sword with a curved blade and a relatively large hand guard. It is thought that the term originated with the Hungarian verb “szabni” meaning “to cut”.

33 Accessory with a Lego Riddler minifigure : CANE

Lego Batman is a line of Lego construction toys under license from DC Comics. The series was so popular that it spawned Lego Batman TV shows, video games and movies.

The Riddler is a supervillain from the Batman universe. He first appeared in “Detective Comics” in 1948. The Riddler’s real name is “Edward Nigma”, who became obsessed with solving puzzles and winning prizes by cheating at school. He uses his puzzle-solving skills to cheat customers at a carnival, and eventually dons the guise of the Riddler to take on Batman.

34 __ & Perrins steak sauce : LEA

Sauce producer Lea & Perrins was founded way back in 1837, in the city of Worcester, England. The company’s most famous product is Worcestershire sauce, which was named for the county in which the condiment was first produced.

39 Touchdown stat : ETA

Estimated time of arrival (ETA)

41 Axels and lutzes : LEAPS

An axel is a forward take-off jump in figure skating. The maneuver was first performed by Norwegian Axel Paulsen at the 1882 World Figure Skating championships.

In figure skating, a Lutz is a toe-pick-assisted jump that one starts skating backwards and ends skating backwards (there’s more to it that I don’t really understand!). The maneuver is named after Alois Lutz, an Austrian skater who first performed it in competition way back in 1913. Lutz wowed the crowd with a single jump, and today both men and women are landing triple Lutz jumps. No one has landed a clean quadruple Lutz in competition.

42 *Fix-it guide : REPAIR MANUAL (starts with “RAPIER” play)

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.

46 Words of wisdom : PROVERB

A proverb is a popular adage or saying. The term “proverb” comes from the Latin “pro” (forth) and “verbum” (word). So, a “proverb” is “words put forth”.

47 Kimono accessory : OBI

The sash worn as part of traditional Japanese dress is known as an obi. The obi can be tied at the back in what is called a butterfly knot. The term “obi” is also used for the thick cotton belts that are an essential part of the outfits worn by practitioners of many martial arts. The color of the martial arts obi signifies the wearer’s skill level.

The lovely Japanese kimono is a garment worn by men, women and children. The word “kimono” translates simply as “thing to wear”, with “ki” meaning “wear” and “mono” meaning “thing”.

52 Cabinet dept. : ENER

The US Department of Energy (DOE) came into being largely as a result of the 1973 oil crisis. The DOE was founded in 1977 by the Carter administration. The DOE is responsible for regulating the production of nuclear power, and it is also responsible for the nation’s nuclear weapons. The official DOE seal features a lightning bolt and symbols denoting five sources of energy: the sun, an atom, an oil derrick, a windmill and a dynamo.

53 Sunny Day Real Estate genre : EMO

Sunny Day Real Estate is a band from Seattle, Washington formed in 1992 that was one of the first to be classified as “emo”. The group went through some name changes over time, all quite colorful. They started out as Empty Set, then Chewbacca Kaboom, followed by One Day I Stopped Breathing.

54 Land of the Minotaur : CRETE

Crete is the largest of the Greek Islands, and figures heavily in Greek mythology. Zeus was born in a cave at Mount Ida, the highest peak on the island. Crete was also home to the Labyrinth where the Minotaur was slain by Theseus. Icarus and Daedalus, after having crafted the Labyrinth, escaped from the island using wings that they crafted.

59 Inheritance factor : GENE

A gene is a section of a chromosome that is responsible for a particular characteristic in an organism. For example, one gene may determine eye color and another balding pattern. We have two copies of each gene, one from each of our parents, with each copy known as an allele.

60 Bulldoze : RAZE

The term “bulldoze” comes from the noun “bulldose”, which meant “a severe beating” back in the late 1800s. A bulldose was “a dose fit for a bull”, a beating designed to intimidate mainly black Republican voters in the 1876 US presidential election.

61 Trips around the sun : YEARS

A year is defined as the time it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun. The other planets in our solar system take varying lengths of time to complete their orbits:

1. Mercury: ~ 3 Earth months
2. Venus: ~ 7 Earth months
3. Earth: 1 Earth year
4. Mars: ~ 2 Earth years
5. Jupiter: ~ 12 Earth years
6. Saturn: ~ 30 Earth years
7. Uranus: ~ 84 Earth years
8. Neptune: ~ 165 Earth years

Down

1 “Aladdin” villain who transforms into a giant cobra : JAFAR

Jafar is the bad guy in the animated film “Aladdin”. Jafar was important enough to get his name front and center in the sequel called “Aladdin 2”, which is usually referred to as “The Return of Jafar”.

5 Perfect place : UTOPIA

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.

6 Network device : ROUTER

In the world of computing, a router is a device that helps direct traffic, as it were. A router in a house is often found in combination with a modem, and directs traffic between the Internet and the computers in the home.

7 Disco era adjective : GO-GO

Go-go dancing started in the early sixties. Apparently, the first go-go dancers were women at the Peppermint Lounge in New York City who would spontaneously jump up onto tables and dance the twist. It wasn’t long before clubs everywhere started hiring women to dance on tables for the entertainment of their patrons. Out in Los Angeles, the “Whisky a Go Go” club on Sunset Strip added a twist (pun intended!), as they had their dancers perform in cages suspended from the ceiling, creating the profession of “cage dancing”. The name “go-go” actually comes from two expressions. The expression in English “go-go-go” describes someone who is high energy, and the French expression “à gogo” describes something in abundance.

8 Horn of Africa country: Abbr. : ETH

Ethiopia is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation on the continent (after Nigeria) and, with 90 million inhabitants, the most populous landlocked country in the world. Most anthropologists believe that our Homo sapiens species evolved in the region now called Ethiopia, and from there set out to populate the planet.

9 Transparent overlay : ACETATE

An acetate is a transparency used on a projector onto which one can write or draw. It is called an acetate because it is usually made out of cellulose acetate.

10 Second wife of Henry VIII : BOLEYN

Anne Boleyn was the second wife of Henry VIII of England. She was found guilty of high treason after about a thousand days of marriage to Henry, accused of adultery and incest (probably trumped-up charges). Boleyn was executed, but perhaps her legacy lived on in her only child, as her daughter reigned for 45 very prosperous years as Queen Elizabeth I.

11 Like Pentatonix performances : A CAPPELLA

A cappella music is sung without instruments accompanying. “A cappella” translates from Italian as “in the manner of the chapel”.

Pentatonix (sometimes “PTX”) is an a cappella group that was founded by school chums in Arlington, Texas. The group’s break came with a win in 2011 on the NBC reality show “The Sing-Off”.

18 Comforter : DUVET

A duvet is a large, flat bag that is filled with down feathers or a synthetic substitute that is used as a top cover for a bed. Although a duvet is similar to what is called a “comforter” in the US, there is a difference. A duvet often has an easily removed cover that is usually laundered at the same time as the bottom sheet and pillowcases. We use them a lot in Europe, and generally without a top sheet due to the ease of laundering.

25 The ugly duckling, eventually : SWAN

Hans Christian Andersen’s tale “The Ugly Duckling” has to be one of the most endearing ever written. Unlike so many fairy tales, “The Ugly Duckling” isn’t based on any folklore and is simply a product of Andersen’s imagination. It is speculated that Andersen was the illegitimate son of the Crown Prince of Denmark, and that he wrote the story of the ugly duckling that turned into a beautiful swan as a metaphor for the secret royal lineage that was within Andersen himself.

27 Rulers before the Bolsheviks : TSARS

At the second party congress of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903, a split developed. The faction with the most support was led by Vladimir Lenin. As they were in the majority, the group became known as the “Bolsheviks”, a term derived from the Russian word for “more” or “majority”. Lenin and the Bolsheviks led the October Revolution of 1917, as a result of which Lenin came to power. He headed the new Soviet State during its formative years.

29 Milan’s La __ : SCALA

La Scala Opera House opened in 1778. It was built on the site of the church of Santa Maria della Scala, which gave the theater its Italian name “Teatro alla Scala”. Because of bomb damage in WWII, La Scala had to be rebuilt, and reopened in 1946.

30 Pipsqueak : TWERP

“Twerp” and “pipsqueak” are both terms used for someone who is insignificant and contemptible.

32 Serialized drama : SOAP OPERA

The original soap operas were radio dramas back in the fifties. Given the structure of society back then, the daytime broadcasts were aimed at women working in the home as housewives. For some reason the sponsors of those radio shows, and the television shows that followed, were soap manufacturers like Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers. And that’s how the “soap” opera got its name …

38 “The Fresh Prince of __-Air” : BEL

“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” sitcom originally ran from 1990 to 1996. It starred Will Smith as a teenager from Philadelphia who arrives in Bel Air to live in a mansion with his wealthy aunt and uncle.

40 Some trucks : DIESELS

There are two main types of internal combustion engine. Most cars in the US use spark injection engines (gasoline engines) in which a spark plug sparks in order to ignite the fuel-air mixture. A diesel engine, on the other hand, has no spark plug per se, and uses the heat generated by compressing the air-fuel mixture to cause ignition.

41 Highlands title : LAIRD

“Laird” is just the word “lord” in the local English dialect in Scotland and the north of England.

The Scottish Highlands are that part of the country not classified as the Lowlands(!). The Highlands make up the north and west of Scotland.

43 Gamer’s game face : AVATAR

The Sanskrit word “avatar” describes the concept of a deity descending into earthly life and taking on a persona. It’s easy to see how in the world of online presences one might use the word avatar to describe one’s online identity.

45 Got a ride through an app : UBERED

The rideshare service Uber takes its name from the English colloquial word “uber” meaning “super, topmost”, which in turn comes from the German “über” meaning “above”.

50 Senior member : DOYEN

A doyen (feminine form “doyenne”) is the senior member of a group or class. The term is Middle French in origin, in which language it meant “commander of ten”.

52 Washstand accessory : EWER

A pitcher is a container for liquid that has a handle, mouth and spout. The term “jug” is used for the same container in other English-speaking countries. “Ewer” is an older term describing a pitcher/jug. Today, a ewer is a highly decorative pitcher, often with a base and flared spout.

56 PD rank : SGT

One might encounter a sergeant (sgt.) in a police department (PD).