A plain Azed for us to enjoy today. Possibly there will be something different this Easter weekend.
The thing that struck me most about this puzzle was the quality of the clue surfaces. Azed has a rare talent for writing clues that read smoothly while including a good deal of misdirection.
I thought this was slightly towards the gentler end of the range of Azed’s puzzles, but it was still a challenge with its trademark use of the more obscure words in Chambers Dictionary.
I was slightly surprised when I wrote the blog that 75% of the clues had the definition at the beginning It’s something I have noticed from other setters though. I used to think that setters tried to balance the location of the definition evenly between the beginning and the end of the clue to keep the solver alert for the split between wordplay and definition.
| No | Detail |
| Across | |
| 1 | What’s netted in shallop, a herring? Yes and no (4)
OPAH (the kingfish, a large sea-fish with laterally flattened body) OPAH (hidden word in [netted] SHALLOP A HERRING) A SHALLOP is an old heavy fore-and-aft-rigged boat that could be used for catching OPAH [yes]. The OPAH is not a herring [no], so we have examples of both the ‘yes and no‘ mentioned in the clue OPAH |
| 4 | Live plant is mango flourishing round centre of marsh (8)
ORGANISM (living animal or plant) Anagram of (flourishing) IS MANGO containing (round) R (middle letter of [centre of] MARSH) O (R) GANISM* |
| 10 | Wretched lag, loner with little energy in part of cell (9)
ORGANELLE (a specialized part of a cell, eg nucleus, mitochondrion, lysosome) Anagram of (wretched) LAG LONER containing (with … in) E (abbreviation for [little] ENERGY) ORGAN (E) LLE* |
| 12 | Homestead (unusually) taking on Italian physicist (5)
FERMI (reference Enrico FERMI [1901 – 1954], Italian American physicist) FERM (Spenserean [unusually] term for a farm or lodging; homestead) + I (International Vehicle Registration for Italy, indicating the car is Italian) FERM I |
| 14 | Deadly animal a long time restricted to Florida (5)
FERAL (descriptive of a deadly animal) ERA (a long period of time) contained in (restricted to) FL (Florida) F (ERA) L |
| 15 | Fix dodgy drain I found leaking in wharf (8)
QUANDARY (a dilemma or difficulty; a fix) (Anagram of [dodgy] DRAIN excluding [leaking] I) contained in (in) QUAY (wharf) QUA (NDRA*) Y |
| 16 | Drug for treating asthma, like 12 (briefly), name included (5)
INTAL (a drug usually administered by inhaler and used to control certain types of asthma and allergic bronchitis) ITAL (abbreviation for [briefly] Italian, descriptive of the country of birth of Enrico FERMI [entry at 12 across]) containing (included) N (name) I (N) TAL |
| 17 | Ascetic getting drunk in place of debauchery? Rarely (7)
STYLITE (one of a class of ascetics that lived on the tops of pillars in ancient times [rarely, if ever, nowadays]) LIT (drunk) contained in (in) STYE (any place of great debauchery) STY (LIT) E |
| 18 | Wine that’s drunk less with pâté? (8)
SPATLESE (a sweet white wine made from grapes harvested after the main vintage) Anagram of (drunk) LESS and [with] PATE SPATLESE* |
| 22 | Classy lapdog, say, with brand implanted, more costly than most (8)
UPMARKET (commodities relatively high in price; more costly than most) U (upper-class; classy) + (PET [a lapdog is a dog small enough to be PETted in the lap; it’s also simply a PET]) containing [with … implanted] MARK [brand]) U P (MARK) ET |
| 25 | Choirboy maybe controlling start of minim or quaver (7)
TREMBLE (quaver) TREBLE (descriptive of a soprano voice now usually applied to boy’s voices; a choirboy may be described as a TREBLE) containing (controlling) M (first letter of [start of] MINIM) TRE (M) BLE |
| 26 | Newspaper missing start of race (5)
PRINT (a newspaper) SPRINT (race) excluding (missing) the S (first letter of [start of] the word) |
| 29 | Satire a church dignitary’s written behind boozer (8)
SOTADEAN (a satire in his manner of Sotades, a lascivious and scurrilous Greek poet living around 275 BC) SOT (drunkard; boozer) + A + DEAN (church dignitary) SOT A DEAN |
| 30 | Italian dish pa avoided as ‘smelly’ (5)
OLENT (having a smell; smelly) POLENTA (Italian porridge made of maize, barley, chestnut, or other meal) excluding (avoided) PA (the letters P and A at the beginning and end of the word) OLENT |
| 31 | Like decorative beads made of glass or silver, unusual rig (5)
AGGRI (descriptive of ancient W African variegated glass beads) AG (chemical symbol for silver) + an anagram of (unusual) RIG AG GRI* |
| 32 | Nark about tapsters causing hindrance? (9)
DEBARMENT (hindrance) DET (detective; nark [policeman]) containing (about) BARMEN (tapsters) DE (BARMEN) T |
| 33 | Shrink from Shakespeare queerly mistaken about love (8)
REQUOYLE (Shakespearean word for ‘recoil’ [shrink from]) Anagram of (mistaken) QUEERLY containing (about) O (character representing zero [love score at tennis]) REQU (O) YLE* |
| 34 | Botanical details, bits regularly cut from wallpaper (4)
ALAE (botanical details such as a membranous outgrowth on a fruit, a side petal in the pea family, a large side sepal in the milkworts ; a leafy expansion running down the stem from a leaf or any flat winglike process, especially of bone) ALAE (letters 2, 4, 6 and 8 [regularly] taken from [cut from] WALLPAPER) Could also be parsed as cutting the odd letters (1, 3, 5, 7 and 9) to leave ALAE ALAE |
| Down | |
| 1 | Loot as of old? Love of this corrupted (7)
OOFTISH (very old word for money or loot) Anagram of (corrupted) O (character representing zero [love score in tennis]) and OF THIS OOFTISH* Could also be parsed as O + OF + an anagram of THIS – O OF TISH* |
| 2 | Possible constituent of quark, present a very long time (5)
PREON (a hypothetical particle, a possible constituent of a quark) PR (present) + EON (vast age; eternity; a very long time) PR EON |
| 3 | Arabic ‘letter’, coarse alongside limits of ours, read backwards (5)
HAMZA (in Arabic, the sign [letter] used to represent the glottal stop; Arabic ‘letter’) HAM (given to overacting or ranting; coarse) + ZA (A and Z are the limits of the alphabet used in Britain, when reversed can be written as ZA) HAM ZA< |
| 5 | Fail to follow suit, left without limiting doubleton in trick (6)
REFUSE (fail to follow suit in a game of cards) LEFT excluding the outer two (doubleton) letters L and T (without limiting) contained in (in) RUSE (trick) R (EF) USE |
| 6 | Crows working on inside of sheen mostly (6)
GLOATS (exults over; boasts; crows) AT (working on) contained in (inside) GLOSS (sheen) excluding the final letter (mostly) S GLO (AT) S |
| 7 | One provides seamstress’s requisites, reel-end running out (7)
NEEDLER (manufacturer and supplier of needles; one who provides a seamstress’s requisites) Anagram of (running out) REEL-END NEEDLER* |
| 8 | Up-and-coming actress, last up twice, shy of horse (7)
STARTLE ([of a horse] to shy) STARLET (a young film actress, especially one hailed as a future star) with the final letter T raised two positions [up twice; down entry] to form STARTLE STARTLE |
| 9 | Magic herb from Olympia? Part of it anyway (4)
MOLY (magic herb given by Hermes to Odysseus as a countercharm against the spells of Circe) MOLY (hidden word in [part of] FROM OLYMPIA) MOLY |
| 11 | Converted vicar, pre-eminent male in gathering seaweed (9)
VRAICKING (gathering seaweed [in the Channel Islands]) Anagram of (converted) VICAR + KING (a pre-eminent male) VRAIC* KING |
| 13 | It gauges flow, oddly retro, gentle within (9)
ROTAMETER (device for measuring the rate of flow of a fluid) TAME (gentle) contained in (within) an anagram of (oddly) RETRO RO (TAME) TER* |
| 19 | I’m conditionally released, exercise involving one part (7)
PAROLEE (a prisoner who has been conditionally released) PE (physical education [exercise]) containing (involving) (A [one] + ROLE [part in a play]) P (A ROLE) E |
| 20 | Anteater, cross about male partner, departs (7)
TAMANDU (South American anteater smaller than the antbear) TAU (a T-shaped cross) containing (MAN [male partner] + D [departs]) TA (MAN D) U |
| 21 | Somehow get the hang of cooking tattie up, not soft (7)
ATTUITE (to understand by a mental operation intermediate between sensation and perception; somehow get the hang of) Anagram of (cooking) TATTIE UP excluding (not) P (piano; soft) ATTUITE* |
| 23 | Like boorish types, exercise in sink? The opposite (6)
PLEBBY (like boorish people) EBB (decline; sink) contained in (in) PLY (to exercise, as in ‘to PLY a trade’) – i.e. the opposite of the wordplay first mentioned in the clue (PLY inside EBB) PL (EBB) Y |
| 24 | It’s active in intrinsic quality of body passage’s opening (6)
MEATAL (an anatomical term descriptive of an opening of a passage or canal in the body) A (active) contained in (in) METAL (intrinsic quality) ME (A) TAL |
| 27 | Dry fruit that may be formed from a germ (5)
REGMA (a fruit that splits into dehiscent parts; dry fruit) Anagram of (that may be formed from) A GERM< REGMA* |
| 28 | Fate shortly enveloping king overthrown (5)
NORNA (any of the three Fates or Norse mythology: Urd, Verdande and Skuld) (ANON [soon; shortly] containing [enveloping] R [Rex; king]) all reversed (overthrown) (NO (R) NA)< |
| 29 | More like liquid food, not pie, cold and wet (4)
SOUR (cold and wet) SOUPIER (more like liquid food) excluding (not) PIE SOUR |
As duncan says in the intro, a gentle puzzle with quite a few obscure words (Of course, we may soon have one quite hard full of obscure words!).
The blog as usual is ‘one of a high standard and clarity’.
OPAH
What’s netted in shallop, a herring? Yes and no
I considered the full question for both cases: What’s netted in shallop, a herring?
Yes. OPAH is netted in shallOP A Herring.
No. What’s netted in shallop is an Opah, not a herring.
(Sorry, if I am repeating what duncan said).
Many great surfaces as the blog says.
PREON: Liked the def, particularly.
HAMZA: Liked it for the whole surface with the ‘read backwards’ underlined again.
duncan: The underlined defs of AGGRI and REQUOYLE may need a relook (some words inadvertently left out).
Thanks for the blog, PREON not in Chambers93 but I know it well , I have been conducting a long and fruitless campaign to get the name dwarfons adopted instead , they are of course FERMIons .
INTAL has a rare reference to another clue, HAMZA could have had a reference to our setter.
VRAICKING is one of those words you do not believe exists but there it is in Chambers.
Agree relatively gentle this week. I spent 10 years in the Channel Islands so I knew VRAIC though I’m not sure I ever heard it used as a verb during that time.
Thanks for the blog.
I couldn’t find “dry fruit” as a definition of REGMA; any botanists out there care to comment?
Not a botanist but I know a bit, many dry fruits undergo dehiscent splitting and REGMA is one of those types. Chambers93 is close enough.
I could not find DET but it I am seeing it more and nore in crosswords.
Chambers in the version you don’t have Roz @5 has “Det. abbrev : Detective” Maybe all those American cop shows are to blame. 🙂
bridgesong @5, I’m not a Botanist but Britannica says “Simple dry fruits are either dehiscent or indehiscent. They are dehiscent if the pericarp splits open at maturity and releases the seeds, or indehiscent if the pericarp remains intact when the fruit is shed from the plant.” It seems from that that dry fruit is not necessarily dehiscent. Certainly the Chambers definition for REGMA seems to have nothing to to with dry fruit necessarily, just fruit that “gapes”when mature.
Nice observation duncanshiell in the blog about the location of definitions.
Tim C@6
REGMA
What I gather is that such fruits are always dry (with dry pericarps–not fleshy). After this botanist avatar, my next one is that of a particle physicist.
PREON
As the blog says (I think Duncan has quoted Chambers) it is a hypothetical particle and the def is cute, I liked it. (dwarfons: I like the name, Roz. Your coinage?).
KVa @7 yes my coinage , I send my students out into the world to spread it. The most consistent model has 7 members.
KVa @ 1
Thanks – I have extended the underlining on the definitions for AGGRI and REQUOYLE
Roz@8
😀
I, too, found this one comparatively straightforward. Thanks for the clear blog.
Further to me @6, I’m in the middle of processing 54 kg of grapes which are indehiscent although about 5% of them were pretty dry and shrivelled. I think they’re going to end up as a nice 2024 Shiraz (Syrah) vintage. Just pressed today, and bubbling along for the final fermentation.
14ac FERAL: I think the definition here is both deadly and animal ie a double definition, rather than ‘deadly animal’. Chambers offers ‘deadly’ as a second defintion of feral and ‘animal’ as a synonym under the first definition of ‘wild’.
Thanks, as ever, for the blog.
Thanks Azed and Duncan
27dn: KVa@7 has noted the relevant definition of dry as “(of a fruit) not fleshy”, which can be found in Chambers 2016. It still seems to need some chasing around in Chambers to see that regma fits that definition. Collins 2023 and SOED 2007 both give “dry fruit” explicitly in their definitions for regma, but ODE 2010 does not seem to have it at all.