Azed 1891 – Plain

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In Azed’s crosswords there is always an enormous amount of Chambers-checking meanings of words. If this blog were to contain all the unusual definitions it would be three times as long. I’ll assume that if you’re bothered enough to do the crossword and read this blog, then you’ll have Chambers to hand, so will confine myself to Azed’s wordplay.

Across
1 PEMBROKE TABLE — broke in (Temple Ba(r))*
10 A LOO
11 DuBLI NInn
12 MEET — “meat” I think: the sweet spot of a cricket bat (say) is its meat
14 JET-SKI — J (kites)*
16 D RO NG 0
18 SONDAGE — G in (no (i)deas)*
19 CAN TIN A
21 KEGELS — g in (sleek)rev. — wasn’t sure about this until I found in Chambers that a meaning of to sleek is to calm
23 U(N(iobe))RENT — can anyone explain why Azed sometimes puts certain words in italics? It seems to me that the clue would read perfectly well without them
27 D(IONA)EA — Dea is a goddess, although hard to find (not in Bradford’s or Chambers Crossword Dictionary) — what would we do without Google?
29 B(LOW)OUT
31 B(IN)END
32 CYTISI — (is city)*
33 E TEN — ten is the card below a jack
34 1 GLOO(m(ullion))
35 EBON — bone with the e at the front
36 PEDICELLARIAE — P.E. (I cellar) in (idea)*
 
Down
1 PA(JO(in))CK
2 MOTEN — (not me)* I think, although I can’t quite explain ‘must’
3 BOSHTER — bosh (ret)rev. — not quite sure why Rafter has been invoked, when Hewitt would be a bit more up-to-date; it’s not as if ‘Rafter’ misleads, since he isn’t at the start of the sentence
4 OL(I)D
5 KISS-AND-TELL — (Dante’s skill)*
6 (h)END-ON
7 TIR-NA-NOG — (ignorant)*; some might take offence at this apparent racial slur, but it’s only a crossword clue
8 BENAME — (man)rev. in bee
9 L(EG GIN)ESS
13 TO(E)Y
15 ELAEOLITE — (Olea)* in elite
17 MIL(d) TONIC
20 ORNATER — (re art no)*
22 G(R)ONE D
24 TAMINE — estaminet with est removed from the outside — made easier by the fact that Azed used the word ‘estaminet’ in a clue-setting competition in October 2006
25 AB(B)E — I think the poet is Kobo Abe, but I read Chambers as saying that an abbe is not necessarily ecclesiastical, so …
26 BUDGE(t)
28 AL(I)BI
30 A COL(on) — ref. Acol, the bridge bidding convention

3 comments on “Azed 1891 – Plain”

  1. 2d “I think, although I can’t quite explain ‘must’”

    ‘moten’ is the plural of ‘mote’ and ‘mote’ = ‘must’ so the full definition is ‘archaic plural must’

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