Longtime readers of my posts know that I love words, and I love crossword puzzles. But I have to say, sometimes I wonder how or why a certain word got used in one of the puzzles.
Sometimes I’ve never seen or even imagined the word that is the answer; other times, I haven’t known a specific definition that is accurate but never used!
Here are a few that challenged me recently from the Sunday Globe newspaper, with definitions first. How many can you correctly pair with a word from the second list below?
1. Cross letters
2. Shot from downtown
3. Aerie builder
4. Angled cut in carpentry
5. Ether form
6. Intro to port or skiing
7. Recto’s opposite
8. Custom-made clothing
Here are the words that answered one of the definitions above.
A. Bespoke
B. Chamfer
C. Enol
D. Erne
E. Heli
F. Inri
G. Trey
H. Verso
And now, to put you out of your misery:
1. Cross letters = Inri
2. Shot from downtown = Trey
3. Aerie builder = Erne
4. Angled cut in carpentry = Chamfer
5. Ether form = Enol
6. Intro to port or skiing = Heli
7. Recto’s opposite = Verso
8. Custom-made clothing = Bespoke
#1 mystified me until I looked inri up and got this definition:
“Classical Latin I(esus) N(azarenus,) R(ex) I(udaeorum) BIBLE Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: the inscription placed above Christ’s head during the crucifixion: cf. Luke 23:38”