You are here: Home> Archives [December 2009] Click here to print this pageprint icon

Puzzle #103 December 2009  "The World's Biggest Atoll"

Instructions: Guess the words defined by the cryptic clues (answers vary in length from four to ten letters, and four are capitalized) then enter them in the grid one after another in the same order as their clues, starting in the upper left corner. Across words that don't end at the right continue on the next row, and down words that don't end at the bottom continue in the next column. Five across words and five down words won't fit in the grid unless one of their letters is removed. Those ten letters spell a word related to the title of the puzzle. Thanks to Kevin Wald for test-solving and editing this puzzle. (If you are having trouble printing these puzzles, you can download an Adobe Acrobat version of the puzzle and grid). [Want to see some hints?]

Across

  1. A dime could get cut to a twelfth
  2. Mandarin has a point about rage
  3. Minor fracas about English wool
  4. Number of children in Eden
  5. Author returned boy's badge
  6. Keen to get new class of chemical compound
  7. Massachusetts in 1620, eg: end of story
  8. Modification turned louder around 5
  9. Never goes back after Republican leaves flat
  10. Revised dates for glacial time period
  11. Evidence Peter started to drift
  12. Beginning to read badly scored documents
  13. Examination inside was cancelled
  14. Small, pale bird
  15. Starting another list of edible African succulent plants
  16. Idle, broken-down toiler
  17. Muffler license renewed before start of race
  18. Kind of music Harry plays in company
  19. Unlikely result for an overcoat
  20. Finally seeing girl in mirror
  21. Priest, fulminating about love, gets sharp retort
    22.

Down

  1. Sick lady swallows one every 24 hours
  2. One welder encloses a vertical support
  3. Messenger getting $1000 for rabbi and warrant officer
  4. Frightening wound you opened
  5. Google essentially redesigned trademark
  6. Dakota Indian put nothing in damaged tent
  7. Small living quarters and initially empty digs require this
  8. Savonarola's rising star
  9. Reviles birds
  10. A passerine among passerines
  11. Mean swindle gets 1000 for 500
  12. A songbird is so nice in flight
  13. Water's on for a period of time
  14. Ruin debris and eastern waste
  15. A thicket of fuzz and earth
  16. Carbon & calx produce weather conditions
  17. My uncle in Paris drops new eye piece
  18. Sent back mugs and junk mail
  19. Lift to reveal disorder
  20. Fuss about the French blade
  21. Italian port from very English city in France
  22. Southern instructor's stretcher
  23. Look small when gaining weight

© Copyright 2001-2009. John de Cuevas. All rights reserved.