A middle difficulty Azed this week. Thank you.
| Across | ||
| 1 | FROWSTY | With sub-zero temperatures around, start of winter unpleasantly close (7) |
| FROST (sub-zero temperatures) contains (with…around) Winter (starting letter of) | ||
| 6 | AWASH | One bit of wreckage, wood floating helplessly (5) |
| A (one) Wreckage (first letter, bit of) then ASH (wood) | ||
| 10 | CHARLOTTE | One sort of tart or another, and the rest doing a turn outside (9) |
| HARLOT (another sort of tart) inside (with…outside) ETC (and the rest) reversed (doing a turn) | ||
| 11 | STEM | Stop the race (4) |
| double definition | ||
| 12 | VIAGRA | Something to revive libido by way of innate character dropping in (6) |
| VIA (by way of) GRAin (innate character) missing IN | ||
| 13 | SHREWDIE | Crafty fellow making troublesome woman stamp (8) |
| SHREW (troublesome woman) and DIE (stamp) | ||
| 15 | PASTE | Something for the sandwiches went steadily? Sounds like it (5) |
| sounds like PACED (went steadily) | ||
| 16 | FLIT | Move unsteadily, following drunk (4) |
| F (following) LIT (drunk) | ||
| 18 | TURGESCENT | Time is pressing with red swelling (10) |
| T (time) URGES (is pressing) with CENT (red, a red cent) | ||
| 20 | TRICHROMATIC | Like French flag, splendid, held by trim CO, fluttering (10) |
| RICH (splendid) inside (held by) anagram (fluttering) of TRIM CO | ||
| 23 | WINK | Hit the jackpot with 1,000 a second? (4) |
| WIN (hit the jackpot) with K (1,000) | ||
| 24 | EPHOR | Former magistrate brought back hanging, hard at heart (5) |
| ROPE (hanging) containing (with…at heart) H (hard) | ||
| 27 | EDITRESS | With year gone, I dye frizzy hair? Brown perhaps (8) |
| anagram (frizzy) of I DyE missing Y (year) then TRESS (hair) – Tina Brown former editor of Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and other publications | ||
| 28 | ENTETE | Ditsy teen, with another one only half besotted (6) |
| anagram (ditsy) of TEEN with TEen (another one, only half) | ||
| 29 | STIE | Old-fashioned pen starts to splash the ink everywhere (4) |
| starting letters of Splash The Ink Everywhere. |
||
| 30 | LOVE-ARROW | Fine quartz crystal suggesting Cupid’s dart (9) |
| a love arrow might be a dart from Cupid. According to Chambers love-arrow is a thin crystal of rutile (titanium oxide) embedded in quartz, not a quartz crystal. | ||
| 31 | KNELL | King with royal mistress? This marks one’s passing (5) |
| K (king) with NELL (Nell Gwyn, royal mistress) | ||
| 32 | MYSTERY | Shakespeare’s skill, an inexplicable phenomenon (7) |
| double definition | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | FUSSPOT | Old woman creating mouldy smell that holds operations up (7) |
| FUST (mouldy smell) contianing OPS (operations) reversed (up) | ||
| 2 | RATHA | Carriage that’s damaged in hartal left abandoned (5) |
| anagram (damaged) of HARTAL missing L (left) | ||
| 3 | OVERSTINK | Smell worse than what pigs produce, volume formerly inside (9) |
| OINK (what pigs make) containing V (volume) ERST (formerly) | ||
| 4 | SHOWER | One demonstrating bathroom appliance? (6) |
| double definition | ||
| 5 | TARDIGRADE | Sluggish business receiving a right taunt (10) |
| TRADE (business) contains (receiving) A R (right) DIG (taunt) | ||
| 6 | ALIENS | Immigrants when receiving legal right (6) |
| AS (when) contains LIEN (legal right) | ||
| 7 | WOAD | Pad soaking in old dyestuff (4) |
| PAD contains (soaking in, absorbing something) O (old) | ||
| 8 | STRAINT | Steamer you’ll find isn’t under pressure as formerly (7) |
| STR (steamer) then (you’ll find…under) AINT (isn’t) | ||
| 9 | HEAST | Old vow – see me freed from the same when it’s broken (5) |
| anagram (broken) of THE SAme missing (freed from) ME | ||
| 12 | VIDEO DIARY | Ivy rampant round cedar I’ll cut – record kept by camcorder? (10, 2 words) |
| anagram (rampant) of IVY containing (round) DEODAR (cedar) containing (will be cut by) I | ||
| 14 | FLECHETTE | Dart fired to wound etc he felt being smitten (9) |
| anagram (being smitten) of ETC HE FELT | ||
| 17 | TRIANON | ‘Grand’ French palace: king will be seen in it when erected, shortly (7) |
| R (rex, king) inside IT reversed (when erected) then ANON (shortly) the Grand Trianon palace near Versailles | ||
| 19 | TERSELY | Without mincing words, group gathered in enters Elysium (7) |
| found inside (group gathered in) enTERS ELYsium | ||
| 21 | HYETAL | Rainy day spent in deathly rambling (6) |
| anagram (rambling) of dEATHLY missing (having spent) D (day) | ||
| 22 | METROS | Subway systems: put ’em in order, from below (6) |
| SORT ‘EM (put ’em in order) reversed (from below) | ||
| 23 | WHELK | Pimple, what the most incompetent will fail to shift? (5) |
| double definition – from the saying “couldn’t run a whelk stall”, couldn’t even shift (sell) a whelk | ||
| 25 | OSIER | ’E mebbe deals in knitwear, such as goes into a basket (5) |
| hOSIER (a dealer in woollen goods) unaspirated – willow used for making baskets | ||
| 26 | JEEL | Scottish set creating stir locally on loch (4) |
| JEE (stir, Scottish) on L (loch) – I think locally indicates Scottish by meaning “local to a loch” | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
Thanks for the blog, PeeDee.
You are right that under the headword <b>sty1</b> in Chambers there is no mention of <b>stie</b>, but under the headword <b>stie</b> Chambers says it is ‘an old spelling of <b>sty1,3</b>’.
I’m sorry for my apparent inability to see a perfectly good button for making bold text that I am sure I have used before.
You are right that under the headword sty1 in Chambers there is no mention of stie, but under the headword stie Chambers says it is ‘an old spelling of sty1,3‘.
You are right Matthew. For some reason the electronic and paper copies of Chambers differ. The electronic version only shows STIE listed as an old spelling under STY(3). The paper copy shows STIE listed with its own headword and as old spellings for both STY(1) and STY(3).
I assume the paper copy is the most accurate, the reference has got lost in the digitsing process.
The old CD-ROM (2003) also lists STIE with its own headword and as spellings for STY 1 and 3, but doesn’t give STIE under STY 1.
This puzzle was definitely Azed in a merciful frame of mind, not that I ever complain when a puzzle is easy!
I initially used the Chambers App for Android which doesn’t show any headword entry at all for stie. Stie only appears under sty.
This leaves me wondering why in the paper version stie gets an explicit mention under sty(3) but not under sty(1). Is this an inconsistency or is it the result of their method for listing variant spellings of obsolete words versus obsolete spellings of current words?
Ref. STIE – that would have had me scratching my head – I wouldn’t have thought to look in my old paper copy.
Had no idea about JEEL, being sidetracked by a Highland reel. “Local” also plays off the fact that “Scottish” has alrady been mentioned.
Parsing, I was baffled why the verst, that former Russian measure of length, was being taken for volume …
Enjoyable as ever from Azed, about middling difficulty. But can we have the old portrait format back please? The print size on the newish landscape format is rather… small.
The landscape format is much friendlier if you are filling a pdf on a computer, keep it please!
sidey – how do you fill the PDF on your computer?