Azed 2125

As always a thoroughly satisfactory crossword from Azed. Quite apart from the quality of the clues, I am always impressed with his grids. More often than not, it seems, he has answers straddling the complete grid, sometimes several, and he seldom has many short words, although in this one he has the most un-Azed-like  total of six with four letters or fewer. How he achieves this is a constant source of amazement to me.

Across
1 PANI(S{talls})C
7 OUTSAT — (quotas – q)* t — Azed, thoroughly sensibly, it seems to me, doesn’t use the Times convention that A on B in an across clue = BA
11 P INTO
12 HUSHABY — h (ayah busy – ay)*
13 TABBINET — tab [= curtain] bin({cradl}e)t
16 STYE — rare spelling for sty — tyes with the s moved to the front — I was trying to get something to work involving pigs in shit
17 LEVANTER — leva (rent)* — 100 stotinki = 1 lev, and the plural of lev is leva, so there must be at least 200 stotinki
18 CHINKERINCHEE — chink ere round (niche)*
23 INTROVERSIBLE — (into vers libre)*
24 SPURRIAL — def ‘bit of old gold’ — 1 in (larrups)rev.
27 FOOD — 2 defs, one of them an old spelling for feud
28 ADDITIVE — (diet avid)*, &lit.
30 UNSTATE — (taunts)* e — I’m not totally comfortable here: it seems that we are to interpret ‘deny dignity to old’ as ‘deny dignity (archaic)’, but is ‘to’ the right word for this?
31 cAKE NEver
32 VAL(IS)E — the word is apparently now American, although I know someone who uses it regularly; but then he is American, so no surprise really
33 G(ER)ENT — one of ours = the Queen
 
Down
1 PUT SCHIST
2 A(PATH)Y
3 I(N BEN)T
4 STINKHORN — (knit)rev. in shorn
5 CON{fined}
6 CHEERLEADER — (RE ale)* in cheder — Azed often uses Jewish words
7 OUTVIE — (voiture – r{ust})*
8 THIN — if you put this word into ‘nog’ you get ‘nothing’, which is ‘jack’ in the US
9 S(AIT)HE
10 ABYE — an old spelling of abide — A bye [as in cricket]
14 HANDSPIKE — hands = turns, pike = weapon with shaft
15 PRECEDENT — (tender cep)*
19 STUNSL — short for studding-sail — a comp. anag. &lit. where there is a definition — [unless it] … [stunsl ie]
20 A(VIA)TE — ‘piercing’ the inclusion indicator
21 SIFTER — (refits)*
22 S(LOVE)N
25 PUNA — (an up)rev.
26 {e}ROTI{c}
29 D AG — the old copper is d.

4 comments on “Azed 2125”


  1. For 30, I took the definition to be “deny dignity to”, UNSTATE being a transitive verb.

  2. colin

    Thanks Azed and John.

    I had FEOD for 27.


  3. I think I’m right with FOOD at 27ac, Colin, as one of the definitions is ‘keep’, which is food (as in food and keep), and also an old spelling of feud.

  4. Colin

    Thanks John. I’m still struggling with Azed but I’ll persevere.

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