Connections
My daily routine nowadays includes two word puzzles: the Puzzmo/AVCX crossword and the The New York Times’ new game Connections. That’s inspired me to see if I could create a hybrid of the two.
Here’s what I came up with. The following is a normal American-style crossword puzzle — no cryptic clues this time — with 24 seven-letter answers. Once you’re done solving the crossword, write down the seven-letter entries and see if you can group them into six categories of four words each, like a jumbo-sized version of Connections. Good luck!
Answers (and a bit of trivia) can be found here.
1 across. Deadly poison — but an essential trace mineral in rats, goats, and birds.
7 across. _______ artists. compilation album credit letters.
13 across. One given special treatment.
14 across. Chemical symbol for stomach acid.
15 across. Anger.
16 across. Substance used by squid to get away.
17 across. On a beach vacation, in Microsoft-speak.
18 across. Nori.
20 across. Alternative fact.
21 across. Acronym describing toasters with network connections.
22 across. Desc. word.
25 across. Childhood home of Yuri Oganessian, namesake of element 118.
29 across. And so on...
31 across. Performance metric at the heart of the Musk vs Twitter lawsuit.
32 across. Prompt.
33 across. French mountain.
34 across. UNIX program that first used ~ for the home directory.
35 across. Gave a command.
37 across. Sailor Scout. the intellectual one letters.
39 across. Chemical prefix from the Greek for "sharp".
40 across. Country home to 59 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. abbr. letters.
41 across. Dromedary, llama, or alpaca.
45 across. Prepared onions. 5 letters and 2 letters.
49 across. English mathematician who was Lord Byron's only legitimate child.
50 across. HTTP Error 500 acronym.
51 across. Green prefix.
52 across. Greeting heard in a dojo.
53 across. Batch.
54 across. Falling item responsible for 2.5% of trauma admissions to a Papua New Guinea hospital.
56 across. Bash.
57 across. Company that introduced the floppy disk.
58 across. Charged particle.
61 across. Chip needed for cell service. 3 letters and 4 letters.
65 across. Pokémon professor.
67 across. Game with a reverse card.
68 across. Operator of the Guiana Space Center.
69 across. Micronesian stones whose owners are recorded in oral history.
70 across. Special effects.
71 across. _______ condition. abnormal state of health letters.
72 across. Superman's birthplace.
1 down. Food planted by Mesoamericans since at least 6500 BCE — and probably not by giant ground sloths.
2 down. Spanish river.
3 down. Important number on a beach vacation.
4 down. Single payer in Scotland.
5 down. Technically, it's a mineral found in glaciers.
6 down. Alleged.
7 down. Country that produces a third of the world's black pepper.
8 down. _______ we there yet?
9 down. Angry?
10 down. Substance used on squid that got caught.
11 down. Prefix with cycle or verse.
12 down. Questionable.
19 down. Sorrow.
23 down. Cricket umpire Aleem.
24 down. Tatami found in a dojo. 4 letters and 3 letters.
25 down. One of several polymers used in paint, fibre, or plexiglass.
26 down. Regret.
27 down. French island.
28 down. Orange cousin of the plum, and the national fruit of 25-across.
29 down. Country that maintains the Galápagos National Park and Marine Reserve.
30 down. Original publisher of Dungeons & Dragons.
36 down. File extension for Windows programs.
38 down. Possible diagnosis for repeated victims of 54-across.
41 down. Vitamin essential to the development of healthy bones and limestone caves.
42 down. Much _______ about nothing. Shakespearean double-entendre letters.
43 down. Organization whose publications cover film sensitivity, A4 paper, and a standard cup of tea.
44 down. Base ten.
45 down. Something is rotten in the state of _______. according to Marcellus letters.
46 down. Hospital wing tracing its roots to Florence Nightingale.
47 down. Country whose biomes include tundra, taiga, and tropical rainforest.
48 down. One of the three sisters of Haudenosaunee agriculture and cuisine.
55 down. Letters received with a dogwood medal by David Suzuki, Joy Kogawa, and Raffi.
59 down. Legendre's constant.
60 down. Silently give assent.
61 down. Short SI unit. approx. half the period of a one-meter pendulum letters.
62 down. Hyponymic relationship. 2 letters and 1 letters.
63 down. File compression format frequently opened with trial-version software.
64 down. Describes projects for amateurs.
65 down. National Pizza Month, for short.
66 down. In the past.