Thanks to Alchemi for a satisfying Monday morning exercise session.
There are lots of horses, and inanimate objects that are called horses, in both definitions and wordplays. I think they’re all in fairly common usage, though I only vaguely remembered 1a (I’m not really a follower of horse racing) and had to look up the definition for 27a.
Lots of very good surfaces too, with or without the horses: 8d conjures up an image of an inappropriately-dressed detective, and 16d an image of a know-it-all dictionary compiler – perhaps the one mentioned below for 4d?
Definitions are underlined; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| Across | ||
| 1 | DESERT ORCHID | Concealed record set earlier, broken by horse (6,6) |
| Anagram (broken) of RECORD SET, before (earlier) HID (concealed). The racehorse Desert Orchid. | ||
| 9 | ELSIE | Woman‘s electronic key rejected (5) |
| E (prefix meaning electronic, as in email) and ISLE (key = island), all reversed (rejected). Woman’s name, though not in common use these days. | ||
| 10 | COTTONS ON | Material child begins to understand (7,2) |
| COTTON (material) + SON (male child). Cotton on = slang for “begin to understand”. | ||
| 11 | VAULTING | Sort of horse which can often be seen in cathedrals (8) |
| Double definition: vaulting horse = gymnastics equipment, or vaulting = masonry arches to support a roof in a large building. | ||
| 12 | CHEESE | Notice about splitting revolutionary food (6) |
| SEE (notice, as a verb), reversed (about), inserted into (splitting) CHE (revolutionary: Che Guevara). | ||
| 14 | TRIPS UP | Stumbles on journey to drink (5,2) |
| TRIP (journey) + SUP (drink, as a verb). | ||
| 15 | HASH OUT | Owns horse abroad to settle the debate (4,3) |
| HAS (owns) + H (= horse = slang for heroin) + OUT (abroad, in the sense of away from home, not necessarily in another country). Hash out = discuss something in order to reach agreement. | ||
| 17 | ADO | Hitler’s left France, missing the fuss (3) |
| ADOLF (Hitler), missing L (left) and F (France). Fuss as in “much ado about nothing”. | ||
| 18 | AGGRESS | Attack with a horse, doing away with first of assembled reporters (7) |
| A GG (gee-gee = child’s word for horse) + [p]RESS (assembled reporters, doing away with the first letter). | ||
| 20 | ROCKING | Legendary bird to crown horse? (7) |
| ROC (legendary bird) + KING (a rather obscure verb usage, equivalent to crown = to make someone king; or just “the Crown” = royal authority, as in “crown copyright”). Rocking horse, a child’s toy; the question mark acknowledges that it’s not a real horse. | ||
| 22 | POMMEL | Place keeping order with Alchemi’s horse? (6) |
| PL (abbreviation for place, particularly on street maps) containing (keeping) OM (Order of Merit) + ME (Alchemi, the setter of this crossword. Pommel horse = gymnastics equipment again. | ||
| 24 | IDEALIST | Visionary fish celebrities (8) |
| IDE (Ide = a fish very popular with crossword setters) + A-LIST (celebrities). | ||
| 26 | AMUSEMENT | In exam, use menthol for fun (9) |
| Hidden answer (in) [ex]AM USE MENT[hol]. | ||
| 27 | PINTO | Horse getting old on drink (5) |
| O (old) added to PINT (a measure of beer). Pinto = a horse with white patches on a coat of another colour. | ||
| 28 | THOROUGHBRED | Horse soldiers brought back in but multiplied (12) |
| OR (other ranks = ordinary soldiers as opposed to officers), inserted into THOUGH (but, as in “I think so, though I can’t be sure”) + BRED (multiplied). Thoroughbred = breed of horse typically used as a racehorse. I’m not sure that “back” is necessary, unless I’m missing something: “brought back in” would suggest that the inserted OR is reversed to RO, but you could insert OR into THOUGH without reversing it to get THOROUGH. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | DISPUTING | Questioning when salad is put in green boxes (9) |
| Hidden answer (. . . boxes) in [sala]D IS PUT IN G[reen]. | ||
| 2 | SIESTAS | Awkwardly assisted, mostly rests (7) |
| Anagram (awkwardly) of ASSISTE[d] (mostly = without the last letter). Siesta = a rest period after lunch, especially in hot climates. | ||
| 3 | RECENT PAST | Coin found in meal last week is in this (6,4) |
| CENT (coin) inserted into (found in) REPAST (meal). | ||
| 4 | OATS | Animals beheaded as food for horse (4) |
| [g]OATS (animals, without the first letter). As defined in Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary: “a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.” But when it comes to oatcakes or flapjack I’m definitely on the side of the Scots. | ||
| 5 | CLOTHES | Horse possibly chortles, losing right to get treated (7) |
| Anagram (to get treated) of CHO[r]TLES, without the R (right). Clothes horse = a rack for drying laundry. | ||
| 6 | ISSUE | Is certain to drop resistance to children (5) |
| IS + SU[r]E (certain), dropping the R (scientific symbol for resistance). Issue = legal term for direct descendants. | ||
| 7 | LEAVE TO APPEAL | Permission to challenge school governors’ ban on software, everything appearing legal initially (5,2,6) |
| LEA (Local Education Authority, responsible for governing schools in a local council area) + VETO (ban) + APP (software application) + initial letters of Everything Appearing Legal. The definition was fairly straightforward but the wordplay took a bit of untangling. | ||
| 8 | INVESTIGATION | Wearing underwear, I got in a tangle looking for evidence (13) |
| IN VEST (wearing underwear) + anagram (tangle) of I GOT IN A. | ||
| 13 | SHOREDITCH | Horse goes around channel in part of London (10) |
| Anagram (. . . goes around) of HORSE, then DITCH (channel). Shoreditch, in the East End of London. | ||
| 16 | OPINIONED | Dogmatic entry for “wing” in dictionary (9) |
| PINION (wing) inserted into OED (Oxford English Dictionary). | ||
| 19 | EYEWEAR | Note time we sport glasses? (7) |
| E (note in the musical scale), then WE sporting (wearing = inserted into) YEAR (time). Eyewear normally means spectacles (glasses), but could possibly refer to other items such as a monocle or eyepatch, hence the question mark to indicate a definition by example. | ||
| 21 | CLAPPER | One applauding head of personnel opening mangled parcel (7) |
| P[ersonnel] inserted into (opening = cutting into) an anagram (mangled) of PARCEL. | ||
| 23 | MOUTH | Insect eats uniform with this (5) |
| MOTH (insect) containing (eating) U (Uniform, in the radio alphabet). Extended definition: the larvae of the clothes moth eat holes in clothes and other fabric. (The adult moth itself doesn’t live long enough to bother eating at all.) | ||
| 25 | MENU | Options for people at university (4) |
| MEN (people) + U (university). Menu = a list of options. | ||
“Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.”
Thanks Alchemi and Quirister, great fun. ‘Hash out’ and ‘aggress’ were new to me but easily gettable. At 27A I first put ‘panto’ i.e pantomime horse, pant = drink? Maybe not.
A 28ac of a crossword. Thanks, Alchemi and Quirister.
Didn’t know the school governors so my first stab at 7d was ‘right of appeal’ which didn’t help anything! Fortunately, no problem with 1a – best horse in the world as far as I’m concerned.
AGGRESS was new to me and TRIPS UP was my favourite.
Thanks to Alchemi and to Quirister for the blog.
A couple of weeks ago (Alchemi)* wrote at this place:
I’m currently very fond of setting puzzles in which the same word keeps popping up doing different things, particularly because people say such nice things about them.
If there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that the theme-word which is mostly being used as definition will appear somewhere as anagram fodder.
And see, that really happened (in 13d).
Fun puzzle.
Many thanks to Quirister & (Chalmie)*.