Azed No. 2,517 Plain – Competition Puzzle

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A grid with an unusual feature for this month’s competition puzzle.

The unusual feature is to be seen at 5 and 27 down, where we have five letter words with full checking. Another feature of this puzzle that attracted my attention is the relatively high number of definitions by example, all qualified either by “maybe” or “perhaps” or by a question mark. The competition word looks to offer considerable scope for ingenuity.

image of grid
ACROSS
1 BURB Led away, was talking incoherently in US dormitory? (4)
BURB(led). This is the fourth sense given in Chambers for “dormitory”: “a small town or a suburb…, the majority of whose residents work elsewhere”.
4 OBSTACLE Ace bolts, galloping – one of several in a race maybe (8)
*(ACE BOLTS). A simple anagram, but the definition is by way of example, hence “maybe”.
11 USURPATURE Encroachment for poet, usually with ecstasy switching internal couple (10)
USU(ally), RAPTURE (with A and P switching places).
12 CUBITS Measures, once artist has knocked back his last two (6)
CUBIST with the last two letters changing places: a similar device to the previous clue.
13 FLOTE Officer briefly interrupting enemy wave as of old (5)
L(ieutenan)T in FOE. There’s nothing in the clue to tell you that the interrupting letters are themselves interrupted.
15 WHITTRET Lassie’s mink maybe got with a wee bittie allowance (8)
WHIT (the least bit), TRET (an allowance). It’s a Scottish term for a weasel, and a mink is a kind of weasel.
16 WINDHOVER Bring round cages i.e. in Germany for kestrel (9)
DH (das heisst in German, meaning that is) inside WIN OVER. The word dates back to the 17th century, but I was familiar with it from Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem.
18 ABELIA Devil getting end away going after American Honeysuckle? (6)
A(merican) BELIA(l) (a name for the Devil). I’m no botanist so don’t understand the distinction between this genus and Lonicera.
20 HEAP Sauce coming in a river? The opposite – single lump perhaps (4)
EA (river) in HP (popular brand of sauce).
21 SENE Gal leaving the country to make a little money abroad (4)
SENE(gal). It’s a Samoan monetary unit.
23 DUETTI Opera pieces, often? Not drinking in proper one (6)
TT (teetotal, so not drinking) in DUE 1. This is the plural of the Italian word DUETTO; there is a spelling DUETT of the English word duet, but its plural is DUETTS. The wordplay leaves no room for doubt.
26 CHAMFRAIN Protection for horse in battle, farm trained, in linked metal (9)
*FARM in CHAIN.
28 SCARIDAE Family of seafish dried out, in case after treatment (8)
ARID (dried out) in *CASE.
29 CHILD Who’s ticked off about a bit of lying? (5)
L(ying) in CHID (told off). An & lit clue, although it does need a question mark as the definition is a little imprecise.
30 LEARNT What pupil did, getting merit in Latin tense (6)
EARN in L(atin) T(ense).
31 SEAMANLIKE Make sail neat (not half) in a storm, being skilled in such matters (10)
*(MAKE SAIL NE)(at).
32 POTSHERD It may interest diggers to hold back the rabble (8)
STOP (rev) HERD.
33 SCUR Prospect for Scots assured – English missed out twice (4)
SeCURe.  “Prospect” here means to search: the stress is on the second syllable.
DOWN
1 BUCKWASH Two thirds of pail was hot for old bleaching process (8)
BUCK(et) WAS H.
2 RUBINE Old stone rubbish receptacle in foreign street (6)
BIN in RUE (French for street).
3 BRINDLE Spotted playing blinder (7)
*BLINDER. This is an adjectival form, meaning marked with spots or streaks.
5 BASHO Duck under blow in wrestling tournament (5)
0 (zero or a duck in cricket scoring) under BASH. Unusually, this five-letter word (and the corresponding entry at 27 down) is fully checked.
6 STRIVED Struggled uncommonly as tenor in reworking of Verdi’s (7)
T in *VERDIS. It’s “uncommonly” because the regular past tense of strive is “strove” but both Shakespeare and the Bible have “strived”.
7 TUFTER Deerhound? Not crazy about matted fur, unkempt (6)
*(maTTEd FUR). A slightly unusual construction where you have to remove letters from “matted” before embarking on the anagram.
8 CEORL Lowly freeman, boss of company hands? (5)
CEO (Chief Executive Officer) R L.
9 LITERATIM Letter for letter (9)
The competition word.
10 EVET Decommissioned amphibian navy left out of contingency (4)
EVE(n)T. It’s an alternative form of “eft”, meaning a newt or lizard. The OED just gives this as one of the spellings of “eft”, so it’s puzzling that Chambers gives it its own entry.
14 LIBECCHIO Wind formerly cut choice at sea (9)
LIB (meaning to geld, or cut), *CHOICE. It’s the southwest wind.
17 SPINSTER Tabby cat, legs going in rear mostly (8)
PINS (legs) inside STER(n).
19 ACADEME Life at university? Pinnacle includes a degree, English (7)
A D(egree) E(nglish) inside ACME.
20 HERBALS Linnaean library? Find right book, going into ‘Cures’ (7)
R B in HEALS. The definition is perhaps a little anachronistic, as herbals (books containing descriptions of plants with their medicinal properties) certainly existed before Linnaeus (1707 -78),
22 WHIDAH African bird concealed in old hedge upside down (6)
HID in HAW (rev).
24 TAURIC Bully for you, making tons of gold! (6)
T(ons) AURIC. I’m not entirely sure what “for you” is doing in the clue: it doesn’t seem to be part of the definition or the wordplay.
25 WAIST Weight reduced, one is going in here? (5)
A IS inside W(eigh)T.
27 MALAR Cheeky nonsense, hiding key (5)
MALAR(key).
28 SCOP Il Trovatore, to wit singular opera? (4)
SC (to wit) OP(era). It means an Anglo-Saxon minstrel, or troubador.

9 comments on “Azed No. 2,517 Plain – Competition Puzzle”

  1. Thanks Azed and Bridgesong. I never used to be an Azed fan, but I actually understood all of the clues this time. My attempt for 9D: Inscrutable remittal I examined letter by letter.

  2. A couple I couldn’t parse – 25dn, which seems obvious now you’ve explained it, and 27dn, which is a bit more obscure.

    7dn, I appear to have entered TUFTED, presumably thinking that meant unkempt.  Don’t know why I failed to spot TUFTER in Chambers, that was a week ago.  Maybe I did but misentered it in the grid.  Either way, I couldn’t parse that, either.

  3. Interesting that you noticed the 5-letter all-checked words. When I turn my hands to some of the Guardian’s better weekday setters I frequently find 5- letter words where only two are checked and always feel a bit cheated. Azed is in a class of his own.

    LITERATIM was an interesting newby- compare with VERBATIM. Are there any other uses of this ending?

  9. Coming late to this, but I think the parsing of 28D is OP short for opus (singular of opera). And I may be wrong in this, but I suspect the ending in literatim etc is actually ‘im’ rather than ‘tim’, so passim would be another example.

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