Beelzebub 1,288

by

After struggling so much with 1,287, this one was quite a relief.

A rare unaided, single session finish, but one that admittedly required writing in quite a few answers on little more than faith, so it’s quite possible that I’ve invented words just to fit the grid.

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed.

Across
1 ACIS – A + C + IS. I’m not familiar with Acis and Galatea, but as Acis appears to be a male role, it presumably wouldn’t be a contralto part, hence the “Not really” in the clue.
4 OPPOSITE – POSIT in [h]OPE.
9 STREAMINGS – REAM in STINGS.
10 ALLEGORIST – ALL + (G in STORIES*).
13 YULE – ELY< + U.
14 UNDO – UN + DO.
15 LINGERED – LINGER[i]E + D.
18 ADIPOCERE – CORP[s]E* in (A + DIE).
19 NUTRITIVE – NUT + (IT in RIVE).
20 ARGOSIES – (R + GO + IS<) SEA< .
21 ODER – 0 + DER. “Der” being one of the seemingly countless German definite articles.
22 PEKE – [wal]K in PEE.
25 REGENERATES – (AS GREEN TREE)*.
26 PRE-ADAMITE – (DATA EMPIRE)*.
27 OIL WELLS – WELL in OILS.
28 TOSS – from SOTS, being mostly reversed.
Down
1 ARAGUAIA – A + R + (I in AGUA). One of the major rivers of Brazil, I learn.
2 CALENDARER – (A + LEND) in CARER.
3 STEM – STE[a]M.
4 ORGULOUS – G in (OUR SOUL).
5 PARTNERED – homophone of “part nerd”.
6 OMIT – [v]OMIT.
7 INTURBIDATE – (BURIED IN TAT)*.
8 ESSE – [on]E’S SE[nseless].
9 SLIDING KEEL – (LID + IN + G) in SKEEL[y].
11 SLEEVELESS – (LEVEE + L)< in SESS.
12 FICTIONAL – F[r]ICTIONAL.
16 GRISGRIS – GRIS (obsolete word for “rank”) + GRIS (a grey fur).
17 DIERESIS – DIE + RESIS[t].
22 PEPO – PEP + O.
23 YEDE – [hone]YED E[pithets].
24 WATT – W + ATT.

3 comments on “Beelzebub 1,288”

  1. Been away for the weekend so I didn’t have last week’s puzzle to hand.

    Several I couldn’t parse. 1dn defeated me. I see. I assume AGUA is Portuguese for water but I’m not familiar with that. (Did visit Brazil about 15 years ago.) I spent ages trying to find a river called ARAQUAIA.

Comments are closed.