16th century stringed instrument crossword

He produced already the Wednesday puzzle (and moreover, I thought it was Pasquale’s turn by now – but he took his revenge a few days later). I was very surprised to see an Araucaria last Saturday. OSLO OS (= outsize = ‘Large’) + LO – I liked ‘request to look at’ = LO. WEARY WEAR (= ‘be clothed’) + Y (= ‘unknown’ as in algebra) RECEPTACLE CEP (= ‘mushroom’) in (CLARET)* + E – I think ‘E’ = ‘earth’ is an abbreviation used in the electrical sense (as opposed to, say, live or neutral) but I could be wrong. MARTINI MARTIN (= ‘swallow’, as in housemartin) + I (= ‘one’) I didn’t know this or the answer word (a female keeper of a large household or château (castle)) and took a long time to get to this, via a dalliance with a -NANNY ending. By coincidence I solved a crossword in The Magpie only last month based on this line from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (or rather Edward FitzGerald’s translation) which helped enormously with this clue and hence the whole of the right-hand side of the grid.ĬHATELAINE CHAT (= ‘conversation’) + ELAINE – some Googling tells me that the Lily Maid was Elaine of Astolat from Arthurian legend. THE MOVING FINGER (FRINGE)* – wordplay in the answer. The ellipsis is used because the answer also acts as the first word of the next clue. In the sense of the colour pink, it can mean a pink hunting coat or the person wearing it, hence ‘Huntsman’, which might pass for the definition but I’m not sure why wordplay was eschewed here. PINK – this word has eight separate headword entries in Chambers, most of which have several different meanings. It may simply be an old word for king (cognate with ‘royal’ and the French ‘roi’, perhaps) but it’s not in Chambers which seems to be Araucaria’s favoured reference for obscure or archaic vocabulary.ĮN MASSE (SESAME)* around N – I thought ‘Sesame seed’ meaning ‘anagram of sesame’ was lamentable. (= ‘queen’) all in ROY, but I don’t know why ‘old king’ should give ROY (I think ‘Rob Roy’ may have submliminally reassured me when solving). I initially thought it was OK (= ‘authority’) plus E.R. ROOKERY? – I’m afraid I can’t explain this one. From the definition, presumably gin turns pink when made with Angostura bitters. This is apparently a trademarked name which originally comes from the town in Venezuela, so named because ‘angostura’ means ‘ narrows’ in Spanish. TONIC SOL-FA TONIC (= ‘sequel to 18’ as in ‘gin and tonic’), + L in SOFA (= ‘seat’)ĪNGOSTURA BITTERS ANGERS (= ‘infuriates’) around (STOUT)* around RAIT – I’d never heard of this but with the checking letters in place the wordplay seemed unambiguous. You could argue that the abbreviation ‘It.’ gives ‘Italian’ independently of the drink, but then ‘it’ would need a capital. GIN AND ITALIAN – ‘gin’ can mean ‘trap’ and ‘it’ is short for ‘Italian vermouth’, as in ‘gin and it’, but this means that the second half of the wordplay is just the same as the definition. TRADE-IN D,E (= ‘successive notes’) in TRAIN (= ‘followers’) RE + BECK – a rebeck, or rebec, is a mediaeval stringed instrument like a mandolin. ‘establishment’)īAYONETING (IN BYGONE T.A.)* – the double-T form is also acceptable. LUMINANCE LUM (= ‘chimney’) + IN AN + C.E. TOC EMMA (CAME TO + M)* – which is old signallers’ code for TM, i.e. Music of the day (19dn) – Neptune from The Planets by Gustav Holst. I can’t explain the wordplay for 27ac (ROOKERY) and would welcome explanations. There were several other tricky answers or bits of wordplay in this, and while old hands will probably have found it only of moderate difficulty, I suspect that the general consensus might be that this was a hard puzzle.

The last 3 minutes of this, at least, were on 6dn (CHATELAINE) which I found much the hardest clue, although if I’d solved this a month ago it would have taken me a lot longer (see 5dn for why).

16th century stringed instrument crossword