Thank you to Carpathian. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1. Drink fortified wine for comfort (7)
SUPPORT : SUP(to drink by sips or spoonfuls) PORT(fortified wine, originally from Portugal).
Defn: …/the easing of someone’s distress or grief.
5. Attacked appeal Victor developed (7)
SAVAGED : SA(abbrev. for “Sex appeal”) + V(letter represented by “Victor” in the phonetic alphabet) + AGED(developed/matured).
9. Four surrounded by drink still going strong (5)
ALIVE : IV(Roman numeral for “four”) contained in(surrounded by) ALE(a type of beer/alcoholic drink from fermented malt and hop).
Defn: …/surviving.
10. Show bum whitish illegal booze (9)
MOONLIGHT : MOON(to bare and show one’s bum/buttocks) + LIGHT(descriptive of a pale colour/whitish).
Defn: Not sure of this. Unless I’m wrong, moonlight/light reflected by the moon is also called “moonshine”, which in turn is also another name for illegal booze. But I couldn’t find a reference for a direct linkage between “moonlight” and “illegal booze” (other than that the latter was traditionally made during the night).
11. Chop drugs up with love to produce lozenges (5,5)
COUGH DROPS : Anagram of(… up) [CHOP DRUGS plus(with) O(letter representing 0/love in tennis scores).
12. Privy to put hole in pub (2,2)
IN ON : O(letter representing a circle/a hole) contained in(in) INN(a pub).
Defn: …/informed of something not generally known.
14. Featureless second print scrapped (11)
NONDESCRIPT : Anagram of(… scrapped) SECOND PRINT.
Defn: …/undistinguished.
18. Greeting first lady and chaps during do for success (11)
ACHIEVEMENT : [ HI!(a greeting/hello!) + EVE(the first lady/human female in the Bible) plus(and) MEN(chaps/blokes) ] contained in(during) ACT(to do/take action).
21. Heads of the assembly cautiously try diplomacy (4)
TACT : 1st letters, respectively, of(Heads of) “the assembly cautiously try“.
22. Got free ride from two jerks and Duke (10)
HITCHHIKED : HITCH,HIKE(two x “jerk”/to pull quickly) plus(and) D(abbrev. for “Duke”).
25. Woman’s embraced by awful poseur – one with special powers (9)
SUPERHERO : HER(“woman’s”/feminine third-person possessive pronoun) contained in(embraced by) anagram of(awful) POSEUR.
26. Apply for example to return outfit (3-2)
GET-UP : Reversal of(… to return) [ PUT(to apply/to make use of) + EG(abbrev. for “exempli gratia”/for example) ].
27. Tidies leaderless canteens in disarray (7)
NEATENS : Anagram of(… in disarray) 1st letter deleted from(leaderless) “canteens“.
28. Wishes knight in river success at first (7)
DESIRES : SIR(title used in front of the name of a knight) contained in(in) DEE(river flowing through Wales and England) + 1st letter of(… at first) “success“.
Down
1. Rare small vehicle by church (6)
SCARCE : S(abbrev. for “small”) + CAR(a motorised vehicle) + CE(abbrev. for the Church of England).
2. Youngster accepting help having fulfilled financial obligations (4-2)
PAID-UP : PUP(a youngster/a young dog or the young of certain other animals) containing(accepting) AID(help).
3. Generous and candid meeting worker and editor (4-6)
OPEN-HANDED : OPEN(candid/frank) plus(meeting) HAND(a manual worker) plus(and) ED(abbrev. for “editor”).
4. Watch, say, brief getting upset (5)
TIMER : Reversal of(… getting upset) REMIT(brief/the scope of an activity that is given/assigned).
Defn: An example of which/say, is a watch, an instrument for telling time.
5. Demonstrate king, for one, is especially fine specimen (9)
SHOWPIECE : SHOW(to demonstrate/to explain by illustration) + PIECE(one of the figures used in chess, an example of which/for one, is the king).
6. Dell remodel a vaunted revolutionary part (4)
VALE : Hidden in(… part) reversal of(… revolutionary) “remodel a vaunted“.
7. Huge performance trick (8)
GIGANTIC : GIG(a live performance of popular or jazz music by a musician or group) + ANTIC(a trick/a stunt).
8. Set off from meeting around school (8)
DETONATE : DATE(a meeting/an appointment) containing(around) ETON(public school in England).
13. Puts an end to including heads of grilled grouse in bar snacks (6,4)
SCOTCH EGGS : SCOTCHES(puts an end to/stops decisively) containing(including) 1st letters, respectively, of(heads of) “grilled grouse“.
15. Desperation born as feasts end in chaos (9)
NEEDINESS : NEE(born/originally called, in reference to a married woman’s maiden surname) plus(as) DINES(feasts/eats dinner) + last letter of(end in) “chaos“.
Defn: The state in which one is distressed and urgently needs material or emotional support.
16. Quiet craftsperson is biased (8)
PARTISAN : P(abbrev. for “piano”, a musical direction to play softly/quiet) + ARTISAN(a craftsperson/a worker in a skilled trade).
17. Caught bumpkin getting physical exercise with a plant (8)
CHICKPEA : C(abbrev. for “caught”, in cricket scores) + HICK(a country bumpkin/yokel) plus(getting) PE(abbrev. for “physical exercise) plus(with) A.
19. One gliding right getting fish (6)
SKATER : R(abbrev. for “right”) placed below(getting, in a down clue) SKATE(a fish of the ray family).
A showpiece:
20. Takes in commercial and chooses (6)
ADOPTS : AD(short for “advertisement”/a commercial/promotional material) plus(and) OPTS(chooses/selects).
23. Army brag derisively at first (5)
CROWD : CROW(to brag/boast) + 1st letter of(… at first) “derisively“.
Defn: …/a large number of people.
24. Frank is force-fed regularly (4)
FREE : 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th letters of(… regularly) “force-fed“.
Defn: …/unrestrained in speech, expression or action.
I too was befuddled by MOONLIGHT. I’ve only heard of “moonshine”. Also put/apply seemed a bit odd, but there’s probably an obscure justification.
Most enjoyable, thanks Carpathian & scchua.
To moonlight is to work an extra job that your day-job employer doesn’t know about (which might be making moonshine 🙂 ). Or maybe Carpathian mixed them up.
MOONLIGHT
(Chambers mobile app)
Smuggled alcoholic spirit
Enjoyable puzzle. Unusually for a Quiptic level puzzle, there were a few solutions that I guessed/entered due to crossers then parsed afterwards.
Favourite: CHICKPEA.
I agree re 10ac – shouldn’t illegal booze be moonshine?
Like Geoff@1, I wondered why apply/put were synonyms as it is more likely to be ‘put in’ = apply?
Thanks, both.
… apply/put the bandage here, maybe ..
KVa @ 3, I looked everywhere in vain for a justification for MOONLIGHT, but I knew I could count on you and your Chambers. 😉
😀
GET-UP
Put/apply your mind to it.
grantinfreo@5 has already given an example. Thanks.
Moonlight/moonshine stymied me as it was my FOI and I got it wrong which messed up that whole corner
Thanks Carpathian and scchua
I confidently entered MOONSHINE, with a puzzled look at “shine”, so was held up in the NE. Also I wrote in FREE, but don’t see why it means “frank”.
The rest was very good, with TACT an excellent initials clue.
P.S. I just Googled “moonlight alcohol” and nearly all the hits were for moonshine. The only moonlight on the first page was for what sounded like a rather pretentious fruit concoction.
grantinfreo@5
Thanks for explaining apply/put
KVa@3 – thaks for that info re the mobile app. I do puzzles on my laptop and the chambers web/online version has this:
moonlight noun 1 sunlight reflected by the moon. 2 as adj at night • a moonlight flit. 3 illuminated by moonlight. • a moonlight swim. verb, intrans, colloq to work at a second job outside the working hours of one’s main job, often evading income tax on the extra earnings. moonlighter noun. moonlighting noun the practice of working as a moonlighter. [https://chambers.co.uk/search/?query=moonlight&title=21st]
Perhaps the mobile app version is updated more often with recent slang usage…
I also put Moonshine instead of MOONLIGHT and corrected it later, otherwise everything else went smoothly. Thanks to Carpathian and Scchua.
michelle@10
MOONLIGHT
The dictionary app doesn’t qualify the word as informal or slang.
About this app:
Version 5.7 (this info is not useful, I guess!)
The 13th edition of the Chambers Dictionary.
scchua! Your blogs are always excellent (detailed and colourful). I am sure beginners will learn a lot from your blogs as you explain every bit of each clue nicely. Thanks a lot for your service.
MOONLIGHT is an obvious error – it should be MOONSHINE. No matter what some dictionary says… I only came to change it – very reluctantly – when the crossers became obvious. Other than that, a very nice Quiptic. Thanks, Carpathian and scchua.
Another who was slightly held up by confidently writing in MOONshine not MOONLIGHT, on first read through until none of the down crossers would fit, so I deleted shine, entered the downs and ended up with light as the only thing that fitted.
Thank you for a reasonably straightforward Quiptic to Carpathian and to scchua for the beautifully illustrated blog.
The ‘moonlight’ thing is puzzling: it’s in my Chambers (2003), yet I can’t find a single reference to it after searching extensively (at least 5 minutes!) online.
muffin @9: to be frank can mean to speak freely. Not exactly convincing, but near enough.
Perfect.
Ta Carpathian & scchua.
Well constructed Quiptic.
Like everyone else I first entered ‘moonshine’. ‘It’s in Chambers’ is always the setter’s get-out-of-jail-free card. I have always liked the dictionary: lots of words in a small space, and etymologies too. But there are no source references, and the occasional odd definition crops up, as here. Perhaps one of their lexicographers came across the usage of MOONLIGHT to mean illicit liquor (probably an error/malapropism) and inserted it. But who knows where – it isn’t in the SOED and not easy to find online. Perhaps the mistake was made by Chambers staff themselves….
Thanks to S&B
It wouldn’t surprise me if Chambers told us that black means white. I’ve never understood how it seems to have come to be the cruciverbalists’ Bible.
oed.com has MOONLIGHT :…3. 1809– British regional. = moonshine n. A.4. Now rare.
1809 Yon cask holds moonlight, run when moon was none. W. Scott, Poacher
1824 A cask of moonlight. W. Scott, Redgauntlet vol. III. vi. 163
1825 Moon-light, Moon-shine, a mere pretence, an illusive shadow. Also smuggled whiskey. Thanks to the malt and other taxes for this neologism. J. T. Brockett, Glossary of North Country Words
1988 Moonlight, smuggled spirit. J. Lavers, Dictionary of Isle of Wight Dialect ‘
The trouble with Chambers is that it alleges these things, that look like mistakes, without adducing any supporting evidence.
idioms.thefreedictionary.com
moonlight
1. n. illicit liquor; moonshine. Where’s that bottle of moonlight you used to keep under the counter?
2. in. to traffic in illicit liquor. (Best done under the cover of darkness.) He moonlighted during prohibition.
Agree it’s some hard work to locate MOONLIGHT in this sense anywhere at all!
FrankieG does it with ease!!!
Unlike Collins online and many other dictionaries Chambers doesn’t give any example/sample sentences of usage.
Thanks, FrankieG @19. So there is recorded precedent (even though these may be malapropisms that stuck?).
GDU @18: The words ‘black’, ‘bleach’ and the French ‘blanc’ are all believed to derive from a Proto-Indo-European word meaning ‘burn, shine’. ‘Black’ presumably from ‘burnt’, the others from ‘burning (brightly)’. So black can be white 🙂
Gervase @ 21, ha! Actually I knew that. I heard a dictionary compiler discussing this on talkback radio a few years ago, and have related this to people on occasion. I was going to mention this a bit later here, but you beat me to it!
[GDU @22: The evolution of colour terminology is interesting. Proto-Indo-European, and its early descendants, had a very limited colour vocabulary; ‘red’ was distinguished, but the other words covered a range of hues, or referred more to intensity than position on the visible spectrum. Hence Homer’s reference to the ‘wine-dark sea’. As some of these vague colour terms crystallised into more specific meanings there are some strange semantic leaps. Thus the English word ‘blue’ is cognate with the Latin ‘flavus’ – yellow!]
Gervase@17, 21 and 23!
Thanks for the enlightenment. Please keep it coming.
Gervase @ 23, very interesting, thanks!
[The Welsh “glas” is another of those indeterminate colours, meaning anything from blue to green to silvery-grey. Given the misty Welsh climate, perhaps it isn’t surprising that the colours of sea, sky and landscape blend into one another.]
Gervase@21 – accusing Sir Walter Scott and two dictionaries of malapropism? 😯
24a “Frank, Fearless and FREE” – the three Fs – used to be the motto under the masthead of the old Daily Mirror in its left-wing ’60s heyday, before
Murdoch, Maxwell, and Morgan; Page 3, pension stealing, and phone hacking.
Liked 13d SCOTCH EGGS, but the plural means at least two (2.5 on that plate), so Michael Gove would say the definition should’ve been “a substantial meal”
Thanks C&S
Everything a Quiptic should be.
I liked the non-anagram (developed) for SAVAGED. It had to be moonshine, surely, but no. The derivation for moonshine is given here: From the late 18th century onward, the word’s colloquial use in reference to illegally-produced spirits — primarily unaged corn-mash whiskey produced in Appalachia — invokes both the clear color of the liquid and the fact that it was distilled and smuggled at night.
Thanks Carpathian and scchua.
Thanks Carpathian. I enjoyed this – just right for a quiptic.
And thanks Scchua for an excellent blog.
One thing – in the clue for NEEDINESS at 15d, I don’t think ‘as’ means ‘plus’. Rather, I think NEE is ‘born as’.
Another one here slightly mystified by MOONLIGHT, but I shall just take the sage advice offered at 1a to ease my worried mind. Maybe later in the day though.
Thanks both. Super blog.
+1 for MOONSHINE. Otherwise excellent, I loved ACHIEVEMENT.
[FrankieG] I too went down the “moonshine” route, and checked the OED, before reading your post. I’ve just renewed my subscription to the online version for another year, as the library no longer give access. It’s worth a hundred nicker a year.
My pleasure, KVa!
After doing the puzzle and reading the early comments, my thinking was that the setter had made a mistake re: MOONLIGHT. After more comments and reading about the Chambers mobile app, I was thinking well, Chambers is wrong – wouldn’t be the first time. Now having read more, it seems there is support for Chambers, so my resolution for all this is that the clue in such instances should somehow indicate hard-to-find support.
Great blog, thank you. It was a great Quiptic. Like everyone else, I also put MOONSHINE. For some reason the OED site is down for me at the moment, but Etymonline tells me that MOONLIGHT was “also occasionally was used in [the MOONSHINE] sense early 19c.”
Muffin@9: Frank in terms of free: from Medieval Latin francus “free, at liberty, exempt from service,” as a noun, “a freeman, a Frank”. To be Frank was “A generalization of the tribal name; the connection is that Franks, as the conquering class, alone had the status of freemen in a world that knew only free, captive, or slave.”
Lechien @35
Thanks for the FREE explanation. That’s at least as obscure as MOONLIGHT!
It seems to me MOONLIGHT is a genuine mistake. Even if there is an obscure reference to its meaning illegal booze it’s certainly not a Quiptic one. Perhaps Carpathian can confirm? Otherwise excellent, and a nice easy start to the day.
NE corner tricky when you have MOONSHINE instead of MOONLIGHT. I also couldn’t parse 5A.
It’s in the Chambers CD-Rom version from early 2000s.
I happen to know that Carpathian pretty much exclusively uses the Chambers app when setting. I would suggest that she just thought that if it’s in Chambers…
You do have a direct line to Carpathian, after all, Vigo!
Good fun, also held up with the MOONSHINE/MOONLIGHT issue but it resolved with the crossers.
However, can anyone explain why “up” in itself can be an anagrind? “Chop drugs up” seems to me to be relying far too much on “chop”. Unless I’m missing something (which I probably am).
Thanks Carpathian and scchua!
Gervase@21 – The History of English podcast also covers this curio, and is an interesting listen if you’re a podcast listener in the first place!
Vigo @40 – Carpathian should know by now that regardless of what Chambers says, there are plenty of higher authorities on the internet who are happy to share their wisdom for free. 😉
Fun puzzle that fit the bill perfectly for me. Thanks, Carpathian and scchua.
This was published late for me. It was fun and it didn’t hurt my head, even though I had to put in moonlight instead of moonshine. Thanks Carpathian and scchua.
Gave this a good go, and got roughly 2/3 of the way through before giving up and revealing. Like everyone else, I’d never heard of moonlight for booze, but it didn’t hold me up as I already had the crossers in when I first looked at it. Also new for me is OPEN-HANDED (I was desperately trying to make OPEN-MINDED work), and SCOTCH to mean “stop”.
Thanks all.
A nicely approachable Quiptic. Held up in the NE at the end. SAVAGED/GIGANTIC particularly as I became unsure of SHOWPIECE and needed this blog to parse it (thank-you). And unsurprisingly by trying moonshine which blocked VALE. But MOONLIGHT was gettable so not going to complain about it.
Re MOONLIGHT, I think we all have to acknowledge that sometimes Chambers just makes stuff up.
What Gervase@17 and GDU@18 wrote.
Thanks Carpathian and scchua
MOONLIGHT/SHINE: My Dad used to get Moonshine from two different sources, one was particularly bad apparently and he described it as Moonshite. Perhaps Carpathian had the same supplier and was thinking of this and got confused?
Really enjoyed it, completed in a single sitting, go me! 🙂 I do love the Quiptic!
Having put in MOONSHINE and then finding something was clearly wrong for the down clues, I selected it and pressed the “Check this” button and the letters SHINE disappeared. All was then obvious. On line has its advantages, lol.
For those old timers going “gosh it’s been ages”, yes I’m still alive and breaking records for surviving the cancer to the point where, at a recent appointment, my haematologist asked “so what’s your prediction”. As we both clearly had no idea we talked about the cricket instead!