A fine Quiptic from Moley this morning. Just one word I was unfamiliar with.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Finished, with firm and yours truly getting beat
OVERCOME
A charade of OVER, CO and ME.
5 Article thought to have entertained
AMUSED
A charade of A and MUSED
9 Van came out to find troglodyte
CAVEMAN
(VAN CAME)*
10 Everyone taking part in benefit? Swell!
BALLOON
Moley is asking you to insert ALL in BOON.
11 Model and I do a trade
IDEAL
A charade of I and DEAL.
12 Before giving birth in old part of South Africa, the bet was on
ANTENATAL
ANTE for a ‘bet’ before NATAL, for the old province; it’s now called KWAZULU NATAL.
13 Pay maturer one in distress
REMUNERATION
(MATURER ONE IN)*
17 Plug-in device with power to excite!
ELECTRIC FIRE
A charade of ELECTRIC and FIRE.
20 Army unit of 10 involved in blatant trouble
BATTALION
(BLATANT IO)* with ‘trouble’ as the anagrind. If you haven’t seen it before, IO for ‘ten’ comes up occasionally in cryptics.
22 Flyer for old sailor
DRAKE
A dd, referring to the male bird or ‘flyer’ and Sir Francis Drake, the Elizabethan age circumnavigator (and much else). And of course, here’s the obligatory Pierre bird link. A DRAKE is the male of any species of duck, but we’ll go with one of the most common in the UK, the Mallard. Also a famous steam engine. Considerable controversy a couple of years ago with the statue of Sir Nigel Gresley at St Pancras accompanied by the said bird.
23 Fuss band gets from fans like this
ADORING
A charade of ADO and RING.
24 Feeling energy for action
EMOTION
A charade of E and MOTION.
25 Custodian takes a look back at the Queen
KEEPER
A charade of PEEK reversed and ER for our current ‘Queen’.
26 Sharpness as each one turned yellow, initially
ASPERITY
My last one in, and a word that is on the outer reaches of my passive, and certainly not in my active, vocabulary. A charade of AS, PER, I and TY for the first letters of ‘turned’ and ‘yellow’.
Down
1 Tolkien’s goblin concealed plant
ORCHID
A charade of ORC for Tolkien’s character and HID. Is it okay to describe an ORC as a ‘goblin’? I was never into Lord of the Rings, or indeed Tolkien in general, so someone else will have to say.
2 Set one’s heart on cooked endive
ENVIED
(ENDIVE)*
3 Most attractive to arrive on foreign islet
COMELIEST
A charade of COME and (ISLET)*
4 Sadly, it’s ruining aim for scaling down
MINIATURISING
(ITS RUINING AIM)*
6 Men look in to get fruit
MELON
An insertion of LO! in MEN.
7 Even, that is, for one that’s a charmer
SMOOTHIE
A charade of SMOOTH and IE for ‘that is’.
8 Day fishing, when at a loose end
DANGLING
A charade of D and ANGLING.
10 Goat toys with clumsy person
BUTTERFINGERS
A charade of BUTTER for ‘goat’ (it ‘butts’, geddit?) and FINGERS for ‘toys’ in the verbal sense.
14 O dear! More trouble for the airport
AERODROME
(O DEAR MORE)*
15 Aircraft’s dark shade
JET BLACK
A charade of JET and BLACK.
16 Various theorems in institution
REST HOME
(THEOREMS)* with ‘various’ as the anagrind.
18 Reservists strike unit on Pacific island
TAHITI
A charade of TA for Territorial Army or ‘reservists’, HIT and I for one or ‘unit’. An island I always associate with the artist Paul Gauguin.
19 Lament lost youth, originally, with fervour
KEENLY
A charade of KEEN for the (mainly northern?) word for ‘lament’, L for ‘lost’ (as in the football results) and Y for the first letter of ‘youth’. Or you could have LY as the first letters of ‘lost youth’. You decide.
21 Vital answer’s not recorded
ALIVE
A charade of A and LIVE.
Many thanks to Moley for this morning’s Quiptic.
Thank you Moley and Pierre.
An enjoyable Quiptic. I got ASPERITY from the clue but, like acerbity, it is not a word I use.
My sons loved Tolkien’s books, but I never read them at their bedtime – Wikipedia gives
“In some of his unpublished early work, Tolkien appears to distinguish orcs from goblins. By the time of his published work, however, the terms had become synonymous. The Hobbit generally uses the term goblin, while The Lord of the Rings prefers orc.”
Thank you Pierre.
I must point out though that the statue of Nigel Gresley is at King’s Cross, the terminus of the LNER, of which Gresley was Chief Mechanical Engineer; a Gresley statue at St. Pancras, the terminus of the rival LMS, would be a profound heresy.
Whoops, of course it’s at King’s Cross. It’s Betjeman that’s at St Pancras, isn’t it? I should know, since on the rare occasions I go to the Great Wen, I arrive at St Pancras. Thank you, Richard.
Thanks Moley and Pierre
Excellent Quiptic, with AERODROME and REST HOME my favourites for the unlikely anagrams.
Just what a Quiptic should be – not too much of a challenge but enough to keep it interesting. My only quibble was with the clue for ENVIED. I think of envy as having negative feelings towards others who possess something, whereas “set one’s heart on” the desired thing does not necessarily involve negativity. However, although both Oxford and Collins seem to agree with me, Chambers includes “to wish to have something”, so I withdraw my quibble.
Thanks, Moley and Pierre.
‘Just what a Quiptic should be‘ [jennyk].
Fully agree, actually 110%.
My only quibble is a technical one that wouldn’t bother too many solvers if any.
I do not like ‘for’ apparently meaning ‘+’, used by Moley in 24ac (and also in some previous puzzles).
And therefore I would never use it myself (nor do the vast majority of professional setters).
Many thanks, Pedro!
This newbie is grateful for your wonderful learning resource. I have been retrieving puzzles from previous years and then accessing fifteensquared, but recently I can’t seem to pull up your old blogs. For example, I have been solving numbers in the 500s and can no longer find these on your site. Can you help? Thank you!
Julie @7
The reason you can’t find them is that they don’t exist. We first started blogging the Quiptic in August 2010 (Quiptic 562/Pan, 23/8/2010), so no coverage of Quiptics before then but there should be a blog of every subsequent one.
Aha! Thank you for the explanation.