Theme: This is HUGE!
Constructor Doug Peterson has accomplished another tremendous feat, as revealed here:
63-Across. Finale that earns a standing ovation, and a feature of 17-, 24-, 38-, and 50-Across: BIG FINISH. Each of the theme answers FINISHes with a synonym for BIG.
The other theme answers are:
17-Across. Piano studio instrument: BABY GRAND.
24-Across. Indulging in a luxurious existence: LIVING LARGE.
38-Across. Mascot on cans of peas and corn: JOLLY GREEN GIANT.
50-Across. NHL team in Salt Lake City: UTAH MAMMOTH. This ice hockey team was created in 2024 -- not long enough ago for your sports-challenged blogger to have heard of it, but perpendicular entries in the grid were very helpful.
I racked my brain for additional phrases that would fit the pattern. Can you think of a common, two or three word phrase that ends with a synonym for BIG? I couldn't. Doug Peterson thought of four of them, fit them into perfectly symmetrical spaces in his grid, and made one of them span the grid right in the middle. Wow.
Let's see what else Doug came up with to top off his colossal achievement.
Across:
1. Young men: LADS.
5. Add voice-over to: DUB.
8. Dark expression: SCOWL.
13. __ Puffs: chocolaty cereal: OREO. Here's a new clue for crosswords' favorite cookie. I never heard of the cereal. Please don't tell my grandchildren about it.
5. Add voice-over to: DUB.
8. Dark expression: SCOWL.
13. __ Puffs: chocolaty cereal: OREO. Here's a new clue for crosswords' favorite cookie. I never heard of the cereal. Please don't tell my grandchildren about it.
14. Atlas section: ASIA.
16. "Star Trek" role for Nichelle Nichols: UHURA.
 |
| Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Uhura |
17. [Theme clue]
19. Tag call: NOT IT.
20. Gain possession of: OBTAIN.
21. Yahtzee cube: DIE. Singular form of "dice."
23. Apartment payment: RENT.
24. [Theme clue]
27. Word before planning or sale: ESTATE. If you have anything of value that you'd like to leave to your heirs or to charity, consider having an attorney create a trust for you! It will cost you something, but nothing compared to what your heirs will spend on probate attorneys -- and the years they will invest in the process -- if you leave only a will. If you have a legal trust, the transfer to your heirs is almost immediate and does not involve the courts. I see the difference in my work all the time.
30. Young women: GALS.
31. Three, in Germany: DREI.
32. Printer brand: EPSON.
35. Liveliness: PEP.
38. [Theme clue]
42. NNW reversal: SSE. Opposite points on the compass.
43. Borden spokescow: ELSIE. The Borden Company was established in 1857. Its dairy subsidiary has gone through many changes of ownership, and even bankruptcy in 2020. Poor Elsie! Created in 1936, the old gal once had a husband, Elmer the Bull, but he went off to be the mascot for Elmer's Glue under Borden's chemical division. True story!
 |
| Elsie and Elmer grilling beef (!) in the good old days |
44. CBS military series in its 23rd season: NCIS. NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) is a military police procedural television series. 23 seasons, and I've never seen an episode! Any fans here?
45. Body part with a bridge: NOSE. The nasal bridge is the elevated region of the nose between and just below the eyes. It is formed by two small, oblong bones, which meet in the middle.
 |
| The "bridge" is indicated at top as "Nasal bone." |
47. __ on: added hastily: TACKED.
50. [Theme clue]
54. Gym pads: MATS.
55. Extinct New Zealand bird: MOA. Do you remember this from a Monday puzzle in February? Moa are an extinct group of flightless birds formerly endemic to New Zealand. There were likely a couple million of them circa 1300 CE when Polynesians settled New Zealand. Some species were 12 feet tall! Extinction occurred within 100 years of human settlement, thanks to overhunting.
 |
| Moa and human nemesis |
56. Bit of fridge decor: MAGNET.
61. "I knew it all __!": ALONG.
63. [Theme clue]
65. Fable lesson: MORAL.
66. __ gin fizz: SLOE. Shake with ice: 1.5 oz sloe gin (gin infused with blackthorn fruits, i.e. sloes), 1 oz lemon juice, and 0.75 oz simple syrup. Strain into glass filled with fresh ice. Top with club soda and stir gently.
67. Midrange voice: ALTO.
68. Motivation for a project, in hashtags: INSPO. "Inspo" is an informal abbreviation for "inspiration," used on social media to describe motivating ideas, visual references, or creative concepts in fashion, lifestyle, and design.
69. Canonized Fr. woman: STE. The abbreviation for Sainte, which is feminine for Saint in French. For example, the woman we call St. Joan of Arc is called Ste Jeanne d'Arc in her homeland of France.
70. Have on: WEAR. And just as importantly ...
70. Have on: WEAR. And just as importantly ...
Down:
1. Basketball Hall of Famer Rebecca: LOBO. Rebecca Lobo-Rushin is a television basketball analyst and former professional women's basketball player in the WNBA from 1997 to 2003. I did not know (DNK) this, and it gave me a rough start in the northwest part of the puzzle.
 |
| Try to identify the former professional basketball player. |
2. Many a Syrian: ARAB.
3. Balance owed: DEBT.
4. Bean used to make tofu: SOYA.
5. "Well, shoot!": DARN IT.
6. Alysa Liu's Olympic team: Abbr.: USA. Alysa Liu, an American figure skater, is the 2026 Olympic champion in both women's singles and in the team event, the 2025 World champion, the 2022 World bronze medalist, the 2025–26 Grand Prix Final champion, a two-time Grand Prix medalist, a four-time Challenger Series champion, and a two-time U.S. national champion.
 |
| Alysa Liu at the recent winter Olympics |
7. Bright forehead adornment: BINDI. A bindi is a decorative dot or jewel worn on the forehead, representing the "third eye" in Hindu and Indian culture.
 |
| Woman wearing a bindi. |
8. Star that warms Mars: SUN.
9. Written for group singing: CHORAL.
10. Vast cosmic expanse: OUTER SPACE.
11. Squeeze dry: WRING.
12. Milky coffee order: LATTE.
15. Possible score after deuce: AD IN. Tennis scoring!
0 points = Love
1 point = 15
2 points = 30
3 points = 40
Tied score = All
40-40 = Deuce
Server wins deuce point = Ad-In
Receiver wins deuce point = Ad-Out
18. __ monster: Arizona lizard: GILA. The Gila monster is a venomous lizard native to the Southwestern United States and the Mexican state of Sonora. It is a heavy, slow-moving reptile, up to 22 inches long, and is the only venomous lizard native to the United States.
 |
| Gila monster |
22. Actively encourage: EGG ON.
25. Swerves sharply: VEERS.
26. "Auld __ Syne": LANG.
27. Greek Cupid: EROS.
28. Devoted fans of singer/actress Gomez: SELENATORS. This I did not know (DNK in the comments section), but I do know Selena Gomez, especially from Hulu's "Only Murders in the Building," so it wasn't too hard to fill.
 |
| Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez |
29. Up to, briefly: TIL.
31. Some radio personalities: DJS.
33. Shar-__: PEI. The Shar Pei dog breed nearly became extinct in the 20th century due to cultural changes in China. In 1978, it was named by The Guinness Book of Records as the world's rarest breed, with only 60 remaining. The publicity led to demand in the United States. Breeders in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan crossed the Shar Pei with bull terriers, pugs, and bulldogs, and passed them off to American buyers as purebred. The American Kennel Club now recognizes the Shar Pei, but with the fleshier appearance of the cross breeds. The original type of Shar Pei is still down to 50 to 100 dogs.
 |
| Chinese "bone mouth" Shar Pei on the left, American "meat mouth" Shar Pei on the right. |
34. Deal with: SEE TO.
36. City in northern Oklahoma: ENID.
37. Scoreboard nos.: PTS.
39. Quaint affirmative: YES'M. "Yes'm" is a contraction of "yes ma'am," used as a polite, often regional (Southern US) or dated, affirmative response to a woman. Like "Yessir," but for the ladies.
40. Sparkle: GLEAM.
41. Printmaker's fluid: INK.
46. Slangy "Touché!": OH SNAP.
48. Charge for using a card: ATM FEE.
49. Spiced tea from India: CHAI.
50. So-called "fifth taste": UMAMI.
51. Owl's claw: TALON.
52. Crowds around, as a celebrity: MOBS. In our neighborhood, the big excitement is when a group of crows MOBS a hawk. They don't want a selfie or a signature. They want the hawk out of the neighborhood, so it won't eat their eggs or nestlings. Mockingbirds MOB the crows for the same reason. I was anti-crow until I saw them mobbing hawks. Hawks eat songbirds, including the tired migrant birds that come to our yard twice a year, on their way from colder climes to warmer, and back the other way. Hawks have to eat, too, but you know, Not In My Back Yard.
 |
| Crows mobbing a hawk. |
53. Stamps and sends: MAILS.
57. Nibble (on): GNAW.
58. Khartoum's river: NILE. Khartoum is the capital of Sudan, upriver on the Nile from Egypt.
57. Nibble (on): GNAW.
58. Khartoum's river: NILE. Khartoum is the capital of Sudan, upriver on the Nile from Egypt.
 |
| The red flag marks Khartoum. |
59. "¿Cómo __ usted?": ESTÁ. "How are you?" (formal) in Spanish.
60. Marvel's hammer thrower: THOR.
62. Day-__ paint: GLO.
64. Comprehended: GOT.
Here's the grid:
Solvers,
Did this puzzle GNAW at you, causing you to WRING your hands and SCOWL?
Or did it put PEP in your step, and a GLEAM in your eye, on the way to a BIG FINISH?
Maybe we can take some INSPO from your experience. Please comment!
-- NaomiZ
18 comments:
I would say this was
a typical Monday offering -
easy-peasy, but still quite a bit of fun.
FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Tried COCO Puffs until LOBO dissuaded me and OREO arrived. Guess who misread "fifth taste" as "fifth estate" and inked in PRESS, even though that's the fourth estate. D'oh. I plead guilty to often answering YESM to dw. I enjoyed Doug's big effort and NaomiZ's expo. (Yes, I still watch NCIS. And I enjoy the newest entry in the franchise NCIS: Origins showing the evolution of the Leroy Jethro Gibbs character.)
FIR, but act->DUB, and tiara->BINDI.
Coincidently, today is the 89th birthday for Mr. Sulu (AKA George Takei.)
I'm a newly minted fan of NCIS. I'm up to episode 10 of season 1. The office computers all use CRT monitors. Ducky is a hoot. Good to see him gainfully employed after his days at The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Thanks to Doug for the gentle start to the week, and to NaomiZ for the fun review.
FIR. There were a couple of unknowns for me, but well placed perps helped to suss them out.
I picked up on the theme early on and that helped a lot.
Overall an enjoyable puzzle.
Yep, COCO seemed correct until it wasn't.
Nice BIG way to start the week from Doug.
I was surprised to learn that Selena Gomez is a billionaire, largely driven by her successful makeup line, Rare Beauty.
Thanks, for the Borden spokescow exposé, Naomi. I never knew that Elsie and Elmer were married! Now that you piqued my interest, I discovered they had a family with four primary offspring featured in advertising from the 1940s and 1950s: Beulah, Beauregard, and twins Larabee and Lobelia. Moo!
FIR. Fun theme and smooth puzzle. I DNK LOBO, SELENATORS, but easy to guess, and AD IN.
I watched NCIS the first several years it aired. I was quite a fan.
Thank you NaomiZ for a nice review. I appreciate the review of tennis scoring. I have observed mocking birds MOBbing crows. They are quite persistent.
I almost upchucked my Oreo Puffs upon seeing the gif that introduced this otherwise fine review.
A nice Monday puzzle with a warm and fuzzy touch of nostalgia for this solver (the stacking of Jolly Green Giant and Elsie).
It wasn't a BIG deal to easily to FIR in spite of unusual unknowns in Doug's puzzle. SELENATORS have made her extremely rich buying her beauty products. I doubt she she had an INSPO to sell a BINDI to wear to a Utah MAMMOTH game. Four new word for me.
"27. Word before planning or sale: ESTATE. If you have anything of value that you'd like to leave to your heirs or to charity, consider having an attorney create a trust for you! "
Unless you have millions, I wouldn't do it. And don't ever attend one of those 'seminars' with a free meal at an upscale restaurant. And don't invest in what you don't know or what they advise you to invest in. In 1993, DW's aunt and uncle created TWO trusts to be distributed evenly among all nieces and nephews. They were not wealthy. They put their investments and house in the Trusts. One died in 2010 and the other lived to age 97 and died last July. Their biggest mistake was putting a lot of their money in illiquid REITs, which they and most people lose money in. Next mistake was not opening bank accounts while they were alive in which the Trustee, Successor Trustee, Next Successor Trustee, and Next Next Successor Trustee had authority to sign. Well guess what? The original Trustee died before her aunt. The Successor Trustee died before her aunt died. The Next Successor died before her aunt. And it came down to two Co-Trustees and my wife is one of them. The other Co-Trustee's name was spelled wrong. We had to chase down an original death certificate for the unknown Next-Successor Trustee, four banks (Chase, Regions, BOA, and Capital One) refused to open bank accounts due to all the associated problems, and the REITs will lose money, having to be sold on some secondary market. Banks accounts finally got open; the assets couldn't be distributed to the heirs until the cash was transferred to a bank account. Now the Trusts have to file tax returns. And here's the worst; the lawyer who wrote the Trusts in 1993 moved from FL to KY. When we got in touch with him, he gave us the name of the FL lawyer he gave the paperwork to. The new FL lawyer told us he had no record of it. Luckily, I found a copy when we cleaned out her aunt's house.
It's not as easy as NaomiZ said. The money from the sale of the house and stock funds is still sitting in bank accounts, waiting for taxes to be filed and REITs have not been sold. If you want to leave money for heirs, GIVE it to them while you're still alive. Or even better, open a brokerage account with that person as a Ten In Common or Joint Owner.
A fun Monday offering from Doug Peterson.
Finally… Oreo got clued so that I wrote in Coco first and was wrong…. Well played Patti/Doug…
My wife wears a Bindi when she dresses up for Holi, Diwali, or a Puja. Bindis are a beautiful body adornment and my wife looks stunning with her sari, bindi, and bangles.
Thanks Naomi for your excellent recap.
For once I’m on the early side! I was held up in the northwest corner as I see others were, being sure it was Coco Puffs. But after that got straightened out the rest was smooth and a lot of fun. Thanks Doug and NaomiZ!
I didn't notice the opening GIF, my screen must have froze... reminds me of...
Coco b/4 (what?) no thanks, but now I am hungry for those white cheddar pirates booty thingies...
I have never associated "oh snap" with "darn it."
Elsie cooking steaks??? that's like chickens cooking omelets!
Unintentional nose wrinkle at inspo/Selanators. Of course I parsed it wrong, and did not see it til the write up. I was all set to complain about Selena Tors, but as one word, it kinda makes sense...
Oh well, time to drag my big bUtt outta here...
Hola! No, I did not fall into the COCO puffs trap because most of it filled with the perps. Still, it's new to me. And I have finally learned to spell UHURA and UMAMI thanks to their frequent appearances in puzzles.
SELENATORS was a HUGE surprise, and I've never heard anyone say "OH, SNAP." BINDI also emerged or I would not have known it.
The Credit Union does not charge an ATM FEE for members.
I'm an avid NCIS fan but stop at Origins. It's too much after watching NCIS.
Thank you, Doug Peterson and NaomiZ.
Jinx...I always remembered Ducky as RMS Titanic radio operator Harold Bride in "A Night to Remember".
Musings
-I was stuck at SELNATOR_/IN_PO. I could think of several letters to end a Selna fan and then I saw the clue was plural and I was good to go.
-When Captain Kirk kissed UHURU, it was the first scripted interracial kiss on American television
-I am a NCISISTA. The show’s simple formula is predictable, fun and a guilty pleasure. The good guys always win.
-Rebecca LOBO is a big fan Caitlin Clark and what she has done for the WNBA.
-The CHORAL part of Beethoven’s Ninth thrills me no matter how many times I have heard it.
-OUTER SPACE: I just listened to a lecture about going to any other star system is a pipe dream with insurmountable odds. Voyager 1 has been traveling for almost 50 years at 7 miles/second and has barely left our solar system and entered OUTER (interstellar) SPACE
-SEE TO: The Supremes sang Come See About Me
-YES’M: My daughter was stunned the first time one of her students called her MAAM
-Is my lovely bride the only one that still writes checks for bills and MAILS them out while not trusting electronic payment?
-Lovely job, Naomi!
This is my favorite HUGE video. (Budweiser Lizards We Could've Been Huge.)
WEES COCO/OREO. Never heard of Oreo Puffs.
I always wanna write UHURU, and hafta remember it's UHURA.
Anyway, in spite of having 4 DNKs among the 14 names, I managed to FIR in 8 minutes, almost as fast as I could fill, pen-on-paper. I needed lots of perps for 50A, another DNK name. Also DNK BINDI.
Overall a Monday/funday CW. Thanx for the fun DP.
Thanx too for the great write-up, filled with information. I DNK the bit about shar-pei dogs. Interesting.
I agree with HG@11:36 that "outer space" SHOULD be defined as beyond our solar system, or even beyond the heliosphere. I cringed when the TV coverage recently called the trip around the moon "further into outer space than man has gone before". But if you look up the definition of "outer space" it says virtually anything beyond Earth's atmosphere. Hmmm. I guess my definition is what constitutes "deep space".
I also agree that while Star Trek was an imaginative and fun series of adventures, it is NEVER going to happen. It defies the laws of physics. Which is why it is CRITICAL we take care of "Mother Earth". (Off my soap box now).
INSPO just looked wrong but the only answer that would perp.
So ELSIE kicked Elmer out when she caught him sniffing glue 😳
When I first heard the term SLOE gin fizz I thought it meant the fizz was slow
When trying to open an APP that fails I sometimes get an “OH SNAP” message, as an expression of disappointment, (not “touché”.)
Also, “nibble”and GNAW aren’t synonyms … GNAW, they’re opposites
Thought a BINDI just meant a woman was married. (Or keeping a third eye on her husband?) 😯
“How’s it going since I last ___ “?“…. SOYA
Embarrassed: To have “____ “ your face … EGGON
Avian show: “America’s Raptors Got ____ “ … TALON
Happy top o’ the week. 😊
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