Thank you to Gozo for the puzzle+. There’s an error (at least in the online version) in the 2 down clue. It should read “Meritorious ……” and not “Meretricious ….”. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
The word-chain is: SIR – RIS(E) – RESI(N) – RINSE(D) – NER(E)IDS – RESIDEN(T) – DESERTIN(G) – DENIGR(A)TES – NEAR-SIG(H)TED.
By the way, “word chain” is a word game in which players come up with words (usually of a specific category) that begin with the last letter(s) of the previous word.
Across
1. Denis, initially, new editor — editor of the Encyclopedie (7)
DIDEROT : 1st letter of(…, initially) “Denis” + anagram of(new) EDITOR.
Defn: …, a French encyclopedia.
Answer: Denis ….
5. Desire changes after noon (7)
NEREIDS : Anagram of(… changes) DESIRE placed after(after) N(abbrev. for “noon”).
9. Two generations and society member (5)
MASON : MA,SON(representatives of 2 family generations).
Defn: …, a Freemason in this instance.
10. Hormone gland is E9, Doctor Rand admitted (9)
ENDOCRINE : E + NINE(number 9) containing(… admitted) [ DOC(short for a “doctor”) + R(abbrev. for “rand”, the South African currency unit) ].
Defn: … ___, ie. a description of a hormone gland as being part of the endocrine system.
11. Daring rugby player at the heart of activity (5,6)
NERVE CENTRE : NERVE(daring/courage) + CENTRE(a player in the inside or outside centre position in a rugby team).
13. Possesses just some of the purchases (3)
HAS : Hidden in(just some of the) “purchases”.
14. Line of black cabs, having dropped off leading Tories (4)
AXIS : “taxis”(black cabs) minus(having dropped off) 1st letter of(leading) “Tories”.
15. Study origin of Incan jars (10)
DENIGRATES : DEN(a study/a private quiet room) + 1st letter of(origin of) “Incan” + GRATES(jars/causing an irritating effect).
18. Isolated heartless composer sitting around (10)
SEGREGATED : Middle letter deleted from(heartless) “Grieg”(Edvard, Norwegian composer) contained in(… around) SEATED(sitting, not standing).
19. Regularly appearing in train-shed (4)
RISE : 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th letters of(Regularly appearing in) “train-shed”.
21. Empty talk encountered in the Orkneyinga Saga (3)
GAS : Hidden in(encountered in the) “Orkneyinga Saga”.
23. Where theatre-goers may sit before the off? (2,3,6)
IN THE STALLS : Cryptic defn: Where the horses will be held immediately before the off/prior to the start of the race, in the starting stalls/cage-like compartments, one for each horse.
Defn: …, ie. on the ground floor of the theatre.
24. Arrange dates here in waters (3,3,3)
THE RED SEA : Anagram of(Arrange) DATES HERE.
26. Err again? (5)
RESIN : RE-(prefix indicating a repeat of an action/to do again) SIN(to err/to do wrong).
28. The Sun’s shock report — vermin has returned (7)
DAYSTAR : Homophone of(… report) “daze”(to shock/stun) + reversal of(… has returned) RAT(an example of vermin, wild animals that are harmful or carry disease).
Defn: A poetic term for ….
29. Joint provided by Boone and Fitzgerald (7)
KNEECAP : An example of a joint, in this case provided by “PAT, ELLA”(first names of singers Pat Boone and Ella Fitzgerald).
Down
1. The mother of a blockade (3)
DAM : Double defn: 1st: … of an animal.
2. Meretricious {sic} having to exchange TV’s components (9)
DESERTING : “deserving”(meritorious/worthy) with “t” replacing(having to exchange) “v”(the 2 letters/components of “TV”).
3. Upset diners (6)
RINSED : Anagram of(Upset) DINERS.
4. DiCaprio film in which lodger embraces male minister (3,8)
THE REVENANT : TENANT(a lodger/one who pays to live in someone else’s house) containing(embraces) [ HE(pronoun for a male) + REV(abbrev. for “Reverend”, title of a minister in the clergy) ].
5. Apparently penniless lecturer turned up with agreement (3)
NOD : Double wordplay 1st: [ NO(not having, indicated by the suffix “-less”) D(abbrev. for “penny”, a unit in the former UK currency) ](apparently/you might say “penniless”); and 2nd: Reversal of(… turned up, in a down clue) DON(a lecturer in a university).
Defn: A gesture of ….
6. Gibraltar and Spain test use of missiles (8)
ROCKETRY : The ROCK(informal name for Gibralter) plus(and) E(International Vehicle Registration code for Spain) + TRY(to test/to experiment with).
7. From Dublin, former PM moves one to the front (5)
IRISH : RISHI(Sunak, form UK Prime Minister) with I(Roman numeral for “one”) moved to first position(moves … to the front).
8. Pop quintet’s short cut to Cinderella’s relatives (4-7)
STEP-SISTERS : STEPS(British dance-pop group with 5 members/quintet) +IS(the contraction “’s” in full) + “terse”(short/blunt in speech) minus its last letter(cut).
Defn: … in the folk tale.
11. The readings are wrong (4-7)
NEAR-SIGHTED : Anagram of(… are wrong) THE READINGS.
12. Old saw threefold skiing turn, swapping sides (5,6)
TRITE REMARK : TRI-(prefix indicating “threefold”/trice) + “telemark”(a type of turn that skiers make) with its [“l”(abbrev. for the left side) replaced by “r”(abbrev. for the right side)]( swapping sides).
Defn: …/an overused saying lacking freshness.
16. Outing to the French city for liqueur (6,3)
TRIPLE SEC : TRIP(an outing/excursion) plus(to) LES(French for “the”) + EC(abbrev. for “East Central”, postal code for a central London district that includes almost all of the City of London/the City).
17. Monthly payment includes team (8)
RESIDENT : RENT(monthly payment for rented accommodation) containing(includes) SIDE(one of the teams in a competition).
20. How you may suffer after bad ‘arvest? (6)
STARVE : Anagram of(bad) ARVEST.
Defn: …, ie. if you don’t get enough crops from your harvest.
22. One-star CD, say (5)
SEEDY : Homophone of(…, say) [ “cee”(C) “dee”(D) ].
Defn: …/the lowest standard in a grading system which could mean being disreputable.
25. Some plums I relish (3)
SIR : Hidden in(Some) “plums I relish”.
27. ‘Forty Winks’ is the tipster’s choice (3)
NAP : Double defn: 1st: A short sleep; and 2nd: The probable winner of a race, as selected by a tipster/….
A very clever two-in-one puzzle from GOZO that kept me well amused this morning.
NEARSIGHTED was a favourite on a few levels, along with KNEECAP and SEEDY.
Thanks to Gozo for turning my brain inside out and back again and to Scchua for the blog. My understanding of word chain was as our blogger states but the idea today was clear enough, as was DESERVING in 2d,…eventually.
And Denis (1a) is, of course, Diderot’s first name.
Wow, I solved the puzzle but did not know what a word-chain was so didn’t manage to string the definitionless (is that a word) answers together.
I was held up for a while by confidently writing in “patella” at 29A.
27D: I do not know the “tipster’s choice” definition. I don’t gamble and I don’t approve of the cruelty of horse racing.
12D: isn’t a “saw” like an “adage” meaning something wise? Whereas “trite” is something trivial? Excuse me for asking but English is not my native language.
Thank you scchua
Top faves: IN THE STALLS and KNEECAP.
Very interesting puzzle. Enjoyed it.
Thanks Gozo.
Great blog as usual. Thanks scchua.
I join with Frieda in not knowing about the word-chain. However answering the 3 and 5 letter undefined clues, then the 4 letter one I grasped the system. A very clever setting by Gozo.
I also flashed in PATELLA until NAP corrected my error.
Thoroughly enjoyable.
Great puzzle and blog. I am still mystified by the word chain. I got SIR led to RISE as R is the last letter of SIR but how does this lead to RESIN? Should the next word not begin with an E as the last letter in RISE? I have obviously misunderstood the instructions for a word chain.
Freida@3. An old saw is usually a hackneyed phrase. It may be wise but it becomes trite because it is very obvious.
Thanks both for a good mental workout.
Thanks Gozo and scchua
5ac: I had NERDIES here, but I can only find nerdy as an adjective in my dictionaries, so I cannot (yet) claim it as a valid alternative. Can anyone come to my rescue here? Obviously, NEREIDS is a more appropriate answer.
12dn: Collins 2023 p 2110 gives trite as meaning “hackneyed, dull” or (marked archaic) “frayed or worn down”. It is from the Latin tritus meaning “worn out”.
Correction to 7: It should be “worn out” in the definition of trite and “worn down” in the derivation. I originally typed “worn out” in both places and edited the wrong one.
Like others I didn’t know about word chains so even though I got all the nine clues – I didn’t see a pattern.
I really enjoyed the puzzle – lots of lovely clues including: DENIGRATE, DAYSTAR, DAM, TRIPLE SEC
Annoyingly did not parse KNEECAP despite knowing Rufus’ clue for PATELLA (I think it was Rufus).
Thanks Gozo and scchua
Pelham@7,
You have possibly coined a word to describe those of us who offer up our musings here!
Another who had/has no idea what a word chain is and I am still not entirely sure what to make of it. Although scchua mentions last letters, the words listed appear to be anagrams of each other to which a new letter is added each time. I’m not sure if there is anything significant in the letters that are added or whether there is a source from which they are drawn that I have missed. Fortunately, I was able to complete the solve – bar NEREIDS and TRITE REMARK (not my def of a saw/proverb but I guess I can see the reasoning). Nice touch to interlink Denis and DIDEROT.
Thanks Gozo and scchua
I do not want to detract from my huge respect for scchua in putting his blogs together, but I am not sure that the mention of the game was really helpful here. I could not find “word chain” as a phrase in any of my dictionaries, but I think Gozo is just using the phrase in its natural meaning as a chain of words.
Sorry, my comment about “word chain” (with no hyphen) was not meant to help, but rather it was an aside to point out that what Gozo put together was different from the game.
Thanks for that, scchua@13.
Fun puzzle.
Didn’t know what a word chain was but became pretty obvious very quickly.
Thought 29A was a bit flaky though.
I got KNEECAP pretty quickly, but the joint is the knee, not the kneecap
What MarkA@15 wrote
Favourite was STARVE
Thanks Gozo and scchua
Thanks for the blog , a clever idea and carried out very well . The misprint was quite awkward but the wordchain actually helped plus letters in the grid.
NEREIDS was the name of my little student swim club but they objected and it is now Mermaids.
NAP is used in newspapers . The tipster predicts winners of each race for the day but their NAP is the most strongly fancied selection.
Thought by now all the setters would have stopped cycling my nationality with that ‘sage’ ex-PM. Gozo is a repeat offender:
“RISHI” “IRISH” “Gozo” site:www.fifteensquared.net
Thanks G&s
Was hoping the letters HAGTEDNE that were removed from NEARSIGHTED would spell out something clever, but was disappointed.
This puzzle was a work of genius i thought.
Really a fun puzzle, but the kneecap is a bone, not a joint. The knee is the joint. Also, one-star can be far from seedy as evidenced by a Michelin 1-Star restaurant.
I had a lot of fun and got the idea of the chain being ‘remove a letter and still make another word’. Thank you all