Friday, 28 February 2025

No 14420, Friday 28 Feb 2025, Hypatia

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ACROSS
8   Notice American eating Australian fruit (6) SAPOTA {SPOT}{A} over {A}
9   Verified Google maps, for one and drove around (8) APPROVED {APP}{DROVE*}
10 Big picture of cover guy, per Spooner (6,4) MASTER PLAN (~plaster man to master plan)
11 Dull poet's retrospective (4) DRAB<=
12 Artisan touring English Church in a frenzy (8) MECHANIC {M{E}{CH}ANIC}
14 Light coal without lead (6) IGNITE lIGNITE
15 Monsters almost gobble and injure son (7) GORGONS {GORGe}{SON*}
17 Flexibility of girl replacing bachelor in faculty (7) AGILITY A(+g-b)GILITY
20 Parades potentially showcasing tyrant (6) DESPOT [T]
22 Optimistic article boring mad genius (8) SANGUINE {S{AN}GUINE*}
24 Basically happy or lively Indian celebration! (4) HOLI Acrostic Semi&lit
25 Initially Rio cycles to join friend after drink (10) ORIGINALLY {(+o)ORI(-o)} with {ALLY}<=>{GIN}
27 Regularly learned Watkins was revolting in some way (2,2,4) AS IT WERE {lEaRnEd+WaTkInS+wAs}<=
28 Doctor had given genetic material in agitation (6) DHARNA {HAD*}{RNA}

DOWN
1   Aha! Ban erotica to suppress hot stuff (8) HABANERO [T]
2   Keep supporting Tesla (4) FORT {FOR}{T}
3   Alert engineers blocking complex network (6) WARREN {WAR{RE}N}
4   Store installing awfully old security device (7) PADLOCK {PA{OLD*}CK}
5   Broadcasting about president's expense (8) SPENDING {S{P}ENDING}
6   Master Chef's coloured bourbon - extremely fancy (6,4) CORDON BLEU {COLOURED+Bo...oN}*
7   Department renewing this academic's term (6) PEDANT {PEDANT+TERM}*=DEPARTMENT [CA]
13 Stop in best parts (4,6) HIGH POINTS {STOP+IN}* [RA] 
16 N/n: Get 1 or n - it's complicated (8) NITROGEN* 
18 Knotting a piece of twine before fishing (8) TANGLING {Tw..e}{ANGLING}
19 Dreams of snakes controlling anger (7) ASPIRES {ASP{IRE}S}
21 Say nothing at first to narcissist (6) EGOIST {EG}{O}{1ST}
23 Early signs of numerous aquatic insects acquiring wings of dragonflies! (6) NAIADS {Nu...s}{Aq...c}{In...s}{Ac...g}{Dr...eS} Semi&lit
26 Unfortunately like to entertain the French (4) ALAS {A{LA}S}

Reference List
American = A, Australian = A, English = E, Church = CH, Girl = G, Bachelor = B, Tesla = T, Engineers = RE(Royal Engineers), President = P, The in French = LA



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44 comments:

  1. anonym28 February 2025 at 08:03

    14a - light ignite coal, lignite without l(ead)

    ReplyDelete
  2. anonym28 February 2025 at 08:13

    19d- dreams,aspires- asps, snakes-anger, ire

    ReplyDelete
  3. Radhamani28 February 2025 at 08:24

    22a.
    Optimistic=sanguine
    article=an,
    (an+genius)*=sanguine

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Radhamani28 February 2025 at 08:28

      20a
      tyrant=despot
      Para(des pot)entially.
      Telescopic

      Delete
    2. Radhamani28 February 2025 at 08:32

      1d
      hot stuff=habenero
      A(ha ban ero)tica
      Telescopic

      Delete
    3. Radhamani28 February 2025 at 08:37

      26d
      Unfortunately=alas
      like=as,the French=la
      (as+la)=alas

      Delete
    4. Radhamani28 February 2025 at 08:48

      11a
      Dull=drab
      Poet=bard., retrospective is reversal indicator

      Delete
    5. Padmanabhan28 February 2025 at 09:28

      22a- not a straight anagram

      Delete
  4. B Sankaranarayanan28 February 2025 at 08:25

    20a. DESPOT (tyrant) telescopic

    ReplyDelete
  5. B Sankaranarayanan28 February 2025 at 08:26

    24a. HOLI (celebration) first letters of clue words !

    ReplyDelete
  6. Kishan28 February 2025 at 09:10

    9A APPROVED - verified; google maps {APP} {DROVE}*
    17A ABILITY - faculty; {A{-b+G}ILITY}
    25A ORIGINALLY - initially; {ORI}, drink {GIN}, friend {ALLY}

    ReplyDelete
  7. Kishan28 February 2025 at 09:13

    27A AS IT WERE - in some way; lEaRnEd WaTkInS wAs <=
    28A DHARNA - agitation; {HAD}" genetic material {RNA}

    ReplyDelete
  8. Kishan28 February 2025 at 09:23

    Correction
    17A AGILITY - flexibility; faculty {A{-b+G}ILITY}

    ReplyDelete
  9. Narayanan28 February 2025 at 10:42

    18d:
    Piece of twine =T
    fishing = ANGLING
    T+ANGLING -> TANGLING = knotting

    6d: CORDON BLEU
    COLOURED + BN (bourbon extremely)
    Master chef's fancy is CORDON BLEU

    ReplyDelete
  10. Narayanan28 February 2025 at 10:47

    4d: PADLOCK
    Store = PACK
    PACK+OLD -> PADLOCK, security device
    awfully is anagram indicator

    ReplyDelete
  11. D N M Rao28 February 2025 at 11:00

    15Ac GORGONS - {GORG(-e)}{SON*}

    ReplyDelete
  12. Devi Prasad28 February 2025 at 11:00

    5DN: spending=expense-
    broadcasting(sending)about
    president(p).

    ReplyDelete
  13. Sathia28 February 2025 at 11:00

    12A: artisan= mechanic
    M(e)(ch)anic
    Sathia

    ReplyDelete
  14. Remy28 February 2025 at 11:01

    16 N-nitrogen n get 1 orn*

    ReplyDelete
  15. Jacob Brahmakulam28 February 2025 at 11:08

    8a SAPOTA; fruit; S (A)POT(A)

    ReplyDelete
  16. Narayanan28 February 2025 at 11:18

    23d: NAIADS
    First letters of Numerous Aquatic Insects Acquiring gives NAIA
    wings of DragonflieS gives DS
    NAIADS = Early immature form of insects

    ReplyDelete
  17. H Ramachandran28 February 2025 at 11:42

    10a. MASTER PLAN = Big picture
    PLASTER = Cover
    MAN = Guy , Spoonered

    ReplyDelete
  18. B N Acharya28 February 2025 at 11:45

    3D WARREN- network (def,) RE - engineers in WARN -alert WAR(RE)N

    ReplyDelete
  19. RR28 February 2025 at 12:02

    2d, keep = fort
    Supporting = for
    Tesla = t

    ReplyDelete
  20. Sathia28 February 2025 at 12:04

    IMO, 7D, 13D, 21D are left to be solved.
    Sathia

    ReplyDelete
  21. Sekar28 February 2025 at 12:30

    21d - egoist = narcissist.
    Say=eg, nothing=o, first=its.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Surendra28 February 2025 at 12:32

    21D Egoist - narcissist
    Say - eg
    Nothing- o
    First - 1st
    Eg o Ist

    ReplyDelete
  23. Surendra28 February 2025 at 12:34

    In lieu of 21D
    13 D High Points- best parts
    (Stop in)* - points

    ReplyDelete
  24. Prasanna Rao28 February 2025 at 13:09

    7d - {PEDANT}*
    Department (- term)
    renewing - deletion indicator
    def . - academic term - relating to schools

    ReplyDelete
  25. Prasanna Rao28 February 2025 at 13:14

    7d. clue is quite tough one. getting two types of annotations. but I am not sure about the annotation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Devi Prasad28 February 2025 at 13:15

      Pedant=academic

      Delete
    2. Devi Prasad28 February 2025 at 13:16

      department -term=pedant

      Delete
    3. Devi Prasad28 February 2025 at 13:17

      (depant)*

      Delete
    4. Prasanna Rao28 February 2025 at 13:34

      Thanks Mr Devi Prasad. finally I cracked with right anno.

      Delete
    5. Devi Prasad28 February 2025 at 13:40

      👍

      Delete
    6. Sree Sree28 February 2025 at 14:06

      The RA clue has an extra S (with no role in cryptic)
      Where the def is "this academic"
      The clue would work fine without s too.

      Delete
    7. Hypatia28 February 2025 at 14:35

      This is a Composite Anagram clue - not RA.

      Agree it can work without the 's but since it is already a tough clue to parse, I did not want to further mislead with "this academic term".

      The correct parsing is DEPARTMENT* = ((PEDANT, defined as This Academic) TERM)*

      It is a rare clue type where the definition is in the middle of the clue and hence there is a placeholder "this" to alert the solver.

      You can read more about this clue type in Crossword Unclued blog - HERE

      Delete
    8. Prasanna Rao28 February 2025 at 15:16

      Thank you Hypatia for getting the oppurtunity to crack the tough one. I tried it as Department = DEPT; the word 'this' blindly considerd as AN, for sake of ENU. after a long search, I got it as the academic clue. But the deletion indicator not showing your parsing.

      Delete
    9. Sree Sree28 February 2025 at 20:02

      @Prasanna
      CA is structured as
      (Department)* = def(this academic) + term
      renewing is the anagram indicator

      Delete
    10. Prasanna Rao28 February 2025 at 21:19

      Thank you sree_sree. obviously it,s a tough one. now I got the clear def. against @15:16

      Delete

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