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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Showy insect with dark eyespots on its wings : IO MOTH

The Io moth is a colorful moth that is native to North America. It has a large spot on either wing that resembles an eye. The “eyes” work as a disguise, as the moth can look like the face of a mammal, and hence ward off potential moth predators.

7A Land bordering the Sea of Azov : CRIMEA

Crimea is a peninsula jutting out into the Black Sea that is almost completely surrounded by water. It is connected to the Ukrainian mainland to the north by the Isthmus of Perekop, and is separated from the nearby Russian region of Kuban by the narrow (less than 10 miles) Kerch Strait. Crimea has been occupied by foreign powers many times over the centuries, and now control of the region is disputed by Ukraine and Russia.

The Sea of Azov lies east of the Crimean Peninsula and is linked to the larger Black Sea via the narrow Strait of Kerch. The Sea of Azov is the shallowest sea in the world, with the depth never going above forty-six feet.

13A Tired expression : CLICHE

“Cliché” is a word that comes from the world of printing. In the days when type was added as individual letters into a printing plate, for efficiency some oft-used phrases and words were created as one single slug of metal. The word “cliché” was used for such a grouping of letters. It’s easy to see how the same word would become a term to describe any overused phrase. Supposedly, “cliché” comes from French, from the verb “clicher” meaning “to click”. The idea is that when a matrix of letters was dropped in molten metal to make a cliché, it made a clicking sound.

14A Start of an old request for advice : DEAR ANN

“Ask Ann Landers” was an advice column written by Eppie Lederer from 1955 to 2002. Eppie was the twin sister to Pauline Phillips, the person behind “Dear Abby”. Eppie took over the “Ask Ann Landers” column from Ruth Crowley, who started it in 1943.

17A “The Rise of Skywalker” role : REY

“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is a 2019 film. It comes third in the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy, and so is also known as “Star Wars: Episode IX”. Even though “The Rise of Skywalker” cost about $275 million to make, it still made a tidy profit.

25A Mobster’s weapon : GAT

“Gat” is a slang term for a gun that is derived from “Gatling gun”, the precursor to the modern machine gun. The Gatling gun was invented by Dr. Richard J. Gatling in 1861. Apparently, he was inspired to invent it so that one man could do as much damage as a hundred, thereby reducing the size of armies and diminishing the suffering caused by war. Go figure …

27A Get one over on : BOGEY

The golfing term “bogey” originated at the Great Yarmouth Golf Club in England in 1890, and was used to indicate a total round that was one-over-par (and not one-over-par on a particular hole, as it is today). The name “bogey” came from a music hall song of the time “Here Comes the Bogeyman”. In the following years it became popular for players trying to stay at par to be “playing against Colonel Bogey”. Then, during WWI, the marching tune “Colonel Bogey” was written and named after the golfing term. If you don’t recognize the name of the tune, it’s the one that’s whistled by the soldiers marching in the great movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai”.

31A Air traveler’s connection : IN-FLIGHT WI-FI

“Wi-Fi” is nothing more than a trademark, a trademark registered by an association of manufacturers of equipment that use wireless LAN (Local Area Network) technology. A device labeled with “Wi-Fi” has to meet certain defined technical standards, basically meaning that the devices can talk to each other. The name “Wi-Fi” suggests “Wireless Fidelity”, although apparently the term was never intended to mean anything at all.

32A Helpful pointer, say? : SEEING-EYE DOG

The breed of dog known as a pointer is also known as an English pointer. There are other pointing breeds, though, dogs that instinctively “point” by stopping and aiming their muzzles at game when hunting. The list of other pointing breeds includes the English setter and the Irish setter.

34A Drink from a small cup : SAKE

We refer to the Japanese alcoholic beverage made from rice as “sake”. We’ve gotten things a bit mixed up in the West. “Sake” is actually the word that the Japanese use for all alcoholic drinks. What we know as sake, we sometimes refer to as rice wine. Also, the starch in the rice is first converted to sugars that are then fermented into alcohol. This is more akin to a beer-brewing process than wine production, so the end product is really a rice “beer” rather than a rice “wine”.

35A War of 1812 treaty locale : GHENT

Ghent is a city in the Flemish region of Belgium. The War of 1812 (between Britain and the US) formally concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in 1814. The American negotiating team in Ghent included statesman Henry Clay and future president John Quincy Adams.

40A Feminist writer ___ Mae Brown : RITA

Rita Mae Brown is an American author who is best known for her 1973 novel “Rubyfruit Jungle”. Brown was the domestic partner of tennis champion Martina Navratilova in the late seventies and early eighties.

43A Gambling site, in brief : OTB

Off-track betting (OTB) is the legal gambling that takes place on horse races outside of a race track. A betting parlor can be referred to as an OTB.

48A One of the B vitamins : NIACIN

Niacin is also known as vitamin B3. A deficiency of niacin causes the disease pellagra. Pellagra is often described by “the four Ds”, the symptoms being diarrhea, dermatitis, dementia and death.

52A Spider-Man foe with metal “tentacles,” familiarly : DOC OCK

Otto Octavius is a supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe. Also known as Doctor Octopus or Doc Ock, he is primarily a foe of Spider-Man.

Down

6D Big acronym in purifying filters : HEPA

Air filters can be specified as “HEPA”, with the acronym standing for “high-efficiency particulate air”. To be given the name “HEPA”, the filter must remove 99.97% of particles with a size of 0.3 microns or larger.

8D “As men in ___ strike those that wish them best”: Iago : RAGE

Emilia and Iago are characters in William Shakespeare’s play “Othello”. They are a married couple, although Iago kills Emilia late in the play.

24D “West Side Story” song that precedes the rumble : TONIGHT

“Tonight” is one of several hit songs from the Broadway musical “West Side Story”. In the 1961 film adaptation of the show, the song was ostensibly sung by Natalie Wood. It was actually dubbed by the celebrated playback singer Marni Nixon.

26D Big name in hosiery : L’EGGS

L’eggs is such a clever brand name, I think. It is a brand of pantyhose (L’eggs = legs) with its product sold, well it used to be, in egg-shaped containers (L’eggs = “the” eggs). The brand was introduced in 1969 and was an instant hit. The inventive marketing of L’eggs pantyhose led to a competitive response by Kayser-Roth who introduced the No Nonsense brand in 1973. The idea behind No Nonsense was that the packaging of L’eggs was just a gimmick, and here was a No Nonsense alternative. L’eggs won the battle, though.

28D Word on either side of “à” : VIS

We can use the French phrase “vis-à-vis” as a preposition meaning “compared with”. When used as an adverb or adjective, it means “face-to-face”, which is a more literal translation from French.

36D Book boo-boos : ERRATA

“Errata” is the past participle of the Latin word “errare” meaning “to err”. We use “errata” (singular “erratum”) to describe a list of errors that have been noted in some publication.

37D Creature of the internet : NEOPET

Neopets.com is a website where one can own a virtual pet. I wouldn’t bother if I were you …

39D Actress honored with a SAG Lifetime Achievement Award in 2025 : FONDA

Jane Fonda is the daughter of Henry Fonda, sister of Peter Fonda, and aunt of Bridget Fonda, making the Fondas quite the acting family. Jane Fonda had many memorable screen performances, but is equally memorable for her anti-war activism. Most famously she was outspoken against the Vietnam War, going so far as to visit North Vietnam during the height of the conflict in 1972, posing for photographs and making radio broadcasts denouncing American leaders as “war criminals”. For her stance, Fonda was nicknamed “Hanoi Jane”.

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was formed back in 1933, at a time when Hollywood stars were really being exploited by the big movie studios, especially the younger and less experienced performers. Early supporters of the Guild included famous names like Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney (you could imagine them in a negotiation!). Past presidents of SAG were also big names, such as Eddie Cantor, James Cagney, Ronald Reagan, Howard Keel, Charlton Heston, Ed Asner, Melissa Gilbert. SAG merged with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) in 2012 to create SAG-AFTRA. One of the more notable presidents of SAG-AFTRA was elected in 2021: Fran Drescher.

44D Computer store purchases : MICE

The computer mouse was invented at the Stanford Research Institute in 1963, by one Douglas Engelbart. Sadly for him, his patent ran out before mice became standard equipment on computers, so he never made any money from his amazing invention.

49D Cathcart’s rank in “Catch-22”: Abbr. : COL

“Catch-22” is a novel by Joseph Heller set during WWII. The title refers to absurd bureaucratic constraints that soldiers had to suffer. Heller’s “Catch-22” was invoked by a flight surgeon to explain that any pilot requesting to be evaluated for insanity, to avoid flying dangerous missions, had to be sane as only a sane man would try to get out of such missions. The term “catch-22” has entered the language and describes a paradoxical situation from which one can’t escape due to contradictory rules; one loses, no matter what choice one makes.

51D Big cheese with bread, for short : CFO

The phrase “the big cheese” doesn’t have its roots in the word “cheese” at all. The original phrase was “the real cheese” meaning “the real thing”, and was used way back in the late 1800s. “Chiz” is a Persian and Hindi word meaning “thing”, and it’s not hard to see how the expression “the real chiz” morphed into “the real cheese”. In early-20th century America, instead of “the real cheese”, the most influential person in a group was labeled as “the big cheese”.