AZED 2,200

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A plain competition puzzle this month after the intricacies of July’s competition.

Sometimes Azed marks round numbers with a special puzzle or an appropriate answer (e.g. Azed 2020) but not so on this occasion, so far as I could tell.  In other respects it’s the usual mix of recondite and obscure words, with perhaps fewer foreign words than sometimes appear.

Across
1 EGG-AND-ANCHOR Ornamental moulding, say, form of dragon a new church installed (12)
A N CH in E.G. *DRAGON.
10 DREK Trash inside trucker dumped, reversing (4)
Hidden and reversed in “trucker dumped”.
12 RUBIOUS Difficulty with debts? It makes one blushful (7)
RUB IOUS.
14 MONOSOMY Missing part of DNA? Doctor inclined to pry, but holding himself back (8)
MO (rev) in MO NOSY.
15 SLIME One associated with detectives is, in short, returning oily servility (5)
‘S EMIL(rev).  Emil and the Detectives was performed recently at the National Theatre.
16 ZIPPO Two forms of duck, one very soft coated, lighter (5)
IPP in Z O.  Z is an abbreviation for zero, and O is of course a representation of zero.  Zippo is one of those brand names that finds its way into the dictionary.
18 BIGENER Hybrid litter (sort of) – information’s contained in it (7)
GEN in BIER.
19 REQUOYLE Kick once queerly miscued catching ball? (8)
O in *QUEERLY.
21 RANT No placid sermon rendered on time (4)
RAN T.  An unusual definition, but clear enough.
22 CRAG Bluff waiter, on being dismissed, retires (4)
GARC(on)(rev).
24 BRINDISI A toast (8)
The competition word.
27 LEGUAAN Large lizard one caught in a lunge, wriggling (7)
A in *A LUNGE.
30 AS-YET Fermentation of yeast up to now (5)
*YEAST.
32 REDOX E.g. burgundy, neat, producing chemical reaction (5)
RED, OX.  “Neat” here is used in its less familiar sense, labelled by Chambers as “archaic, dialect” although there is nothing in the clue to indicate this.
33 STRIDING Power walking I had included in series (8)
I’D in STRING.
34 PUKEKOS Waders honk on Greek island (7)
PUKE, KOS.
35 YEED The old, without opening big dictionary, make progress in Spenser (4)
YE, (o)ED.
36 PEER PRESSURE Feature of competitive classes forever given papers, utterly accepting such (12,2)
E’ER PRESS in PURE.
Down
2 GROLIERESQUE Ere e.g. liquor’s distilled, this’ll denote finely wrought case (12)
*(ERE EG LIQUORS).
3 GENIP Grand climbing tree producing winy fruit (5)
G, PINE(rev).
4 NOSE JOB Misshapen bones? Jock’s beloved goes in for some cosmetic surgery (7, 2)
JO in *BONES.  The enumeration should read: “7, 2 words”.
5 DROOB Australian weed runs amid type of grass (5)
R in DOOB.
6 AUMAIL Armour covered with gold antique enamel (6)
AU MAIL.
7 CIMIER Top of cask, crime if shaken, I sealed (6)
I in *CRIME.  “Cask” here is used in an obscure sense (and more usually spelled “casque”) to mean a head covering or helmet.
8 HOOP Bit of a cough making one stop work (4)
HO! OP.
9 OUT-PENSIONER Oldie, not institutionalized, developed open routines (12)
*(OPEN ROUTINES).
11 KOMBU  Edible seaweed, over 1,000 bits found on SA tree (5)
K OMBU.  The ombu is a South American tree, but kombu is a Japanese word.
13 SHORTIE Fancily trimmed hosiery will include it? (7)
‘T in *HOSIER(y).  I’m not entirely happy with this clue as it seems to me that a shortie is unlikely to be an item of hosiery, which may explain the question mark.  None of the examples in the OED refers to socks or stockings.  Interestingly, Chambers mis-spells “fancily” as “fancilly”.
17 ARC-LAMP Electric light artist erected with brace? (7)
RA (rev) CLAMP.
20 ENTRIES What AZ has to go through and measure efforts (7)
EN TRIES.
23 GUEBER Parsee’s relative in grip of dengue alongside beri-beri (6)
Hidden in DENGUE BERI-BERI (or would be if the words were alongside one another).
25 RAPTOR Former pirate as standard had up before the law (Scottish) (6)
PAR(rev) TOR.  One Scottish meaning of “law” is a hill, or tor.
26 DEEDY Locally active, milker squeezes rear parts of bovine herd (5)
(bovin)E (her)D in DEY.  A dey is an old word for a dairymaid.
28 NURSE Shark one removed from the waves after shoal comes up (5)
RUN(rev), SE(a).
29 ADIEU To the French about to pass on … this may be appropriate (5)
DIE in AU.  A delightful & lit clue.
31 YOKE Theatrical laugh over ultimate in farce – an Irish thing (4)
YOK, (farc)E.  This sense of yoke comes at the very end of the Chambers entry.

*anagram

5 comments on “AZED 2,200”

  1. Thanks bridgesong. 13d is a very odd clue, I can’t see what Azed’s getting at. Most frustrating when that happens.

  2. 13D SHORTIE I think this is OK. Chambers, the recommended dict for the puzzle, has SHORTIE as a ‘very short garment’. I think ‘fancily trimmed hosiery’ would be pretty much equivalent to this.

  3. Doesn’t make sense to me, there is no indication that SHORTIE applies to hosiery in the dictionary and ‘hosiery’, if that were part of the definition, would lead to a plural, socks, tights etc. The only examples of a SHORTIE I can find are jackets or nightwear.

  4. One of the definitions of hosiery in Chambers is “underwear”. The clue’s an & lit; “fancily trimmed underwear” might include a shortie. Always look up both words!

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