Azed 2004 – Fifteensquared

Another Azed that I managed to complete almost all of quite quickly without references, though with some educated guesswork based on many years of finding obscure words in Chambers. Still, it’s none the worse for that, with the usual combination of wit and deviously elegant wordplay.

Across
1. BUST-UP	BUS + PUT<
6. HAFFET	FE (Iron) in HAFT. “Temple” here is as in part of the head.
12. TANTUM ERGO	(TEM[ple] RANG OUT)*
13. TRACHEA	RAC in THE A
14. HIPT	P (soft) in HIT (belt). The word is a variant past tense of HIP, meaning (in America, apparently) “to carry on the hip”. Whether it refers to guns or to small children, Chambers does not say.
15. DETEST	DE (French “some”) + TEST
16. FLY FRONT	“run from van” = “FLY the FRONT”. “Fly” is a synonym of the more usual “flee”.
18. NASTY	N A STY
19. LEWDLY	W + D in LELY
21. GLIOMA	Hidden in seraGLIO MAiden. It’s “a tumour of the neuroglia in the brain and spinal cord”.
24. PILOW	PI (mixture of types) + LOW – Chambers gives “(of latitude) near the equator”. A variant of PILAU (and other spellings)
26. SOCIETAL	(S COALITE)* The definition is “Company’s”, i.e. “of company”.
27. RUNKLE	[D]RUNK + LE[FT]
29. HUGO	HUG + O. The novelist is Victor Hugo, of course.
30. FISHNET	(THE FINS)* &lit.
31. SANDERLING	SANDER + LING. Sander, aka zander, is defined as a “food-fish”. I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly eaten Ling, but it’s a member of the Cod family. The sanderling is a species of sandpiper.
32. STEINS	Reference to the famous Steins Rick (chef) and Gertrude (writer); and STEINs are tankards that might be raised in a German beer cellar.
33. EMPERY	(Not the synonymous EMPIRE, which I carelessly put in at first). MP in EERY

Down
1. BATHING DRESS	([bi]G BERTHA’S DINS)*. The surface reading suggests references to the guns at World War I, and Bikini Atoll, site of nuclear tests, but really we’re talking about swinning costumes old and new(er).
2. UPRISAL	RI (Relligious Instruction) in PAUL’S*
3. STAPES	P[roblem] in SEATS<
4. UNHOLY	(YOU + L[u]N[c]H)*
5. PTERYLAE	PTE + EARLY*
7. AMPERE	[T]AMPERE[D]
8. FELT	This took me a while to work out: “one such” gives BAT, which can be “a layer of felt used in hat-making”; and FELT=”was affected emotionally”.
9. FRIEND	F + RIEN (French “nothing” = love, as in tennis) + D. “Lover” is an old meaning of “friend”.
10. EGEST	Hidden in collEGE’S Tearways.
11. TOOTSY-WOOTSY	TOO (extremely) + WOO[d] in STY* twice. It’s a childish word for a finger or toe, as in the “this little piggy went to market” rhyme.
17. FLAT FILE	LIFT< in LEAF*. Chambers defines FLAT FILE as "a file without hypertext links", but that isn’t a good definition. I'll spare you the nerdy details.
20. LOW GEAR	G[reats] in (LAW OR E)* , with the anagram indicated by “what [it] schools”. First and second are examples of low gears,
22. IONONE	NO-NO< in I.E. The word comes from "ion", which is Greek for violet – nothing to do with the chemical "ion" (which comes from the Greek verb "to go")
23. MILDEN	LD (lethal dose) in MIEN (air)
24. PASSIM	ASS in IMP*
25. LOUNGE	O in LOUNGE. An easy clue that I had trouble with after my earlier carelessness with 33ac.
26. SURAT	RA replaces I in SUIT. Surat is “coarse uncoloured cotton; anything that is of inferior quality”, so “any old tat”.
28. KADI	Reverse of DAK (Indian word for post, in the sense of mail) + I. Kadi (or Cadi) is an Islamic judge.

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