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Puzzled? No more cross words! Read Kosman and Picciotto on “Solving The Nation’s Cryptic Puzzles.” Or watch this video.
ACROSS
1 Someone who brought Oscar home protects distressed Grouch with prayer (10)
6 Cautious women, we hear, concealing a summer activity (4)
9 Profit involving a share of rye or barley, perhaps (5)
10 Tapestry artist following G. Puccini character’s imitation (9)
12 What you might wear on the slopes to bypass bugs (3,5)
13 Ask probing questions about federal organization, and settle early (6)
15 Drowsy moon’s terribly advanced (9)
16 Singable clip taken from ghastly rickroll (5)
17 Spoken instructions on how to turn 2 into 8 (or 18) inches (5)
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19 Obnoxious agent beginning to tweet after talk show (9)
21 Look at area in the back of the boat, staying on top of water (6)
22 Tautology juxtaposed with random chat? That doesn’t go together (8)
25 Hospital resident with terrible pain and connection to nephrologist, marginally (9)
26 Farewell, gold-plated pass (5)
27 A lunatic flips over fish (4)
28 Component of tire ending in a mess (10)
DOWN
1 To begin with, children (1–17, e.g.) should never be put in these! (5)
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2 Start to undermine monarch with, um, the makings of a nuclear weapon (7)
3 Replicate and recombine 28s of monastic breakfast food (8,5)
4 This might help you make strategic decisions: infuse egg, for instance, with hydrogen or yttrium (4,6)
5 Puppet made from wood and love (4)
7 Unfinished card game, according to rumor (7)
8 German octet pursuing me with carefree luxury craft (9)
11 Sing about spy, poet, and actress (6,7)
14 Relative redistributed letters from priest (10)
15 Thus, a boner pill originally terrified Bernie Sanders, for example (9)
18 Drag Affleck to Reverend Spooner—that’s where you might get some relief (7)
20 Weave tangled net at port, say (7)
23 Spook hits on family member (5)
24 Coward backs Trotsky (4)
SOLUTION TO PUZZLE NO. 3476
ACROSS 1 anag. 9 AB(DICA)TES (beast anag., acid rev.) 10 DE-POT 11 PE[s]TER + LORRE (rev.) 12 hidden 13 IND(OO)R (rind anag.) 14 A BA(TTOI)R (Tito anag.) 18 T + OWNS + HIP 20 PARK + AS 23 rev. 24 anag. 26 P + URGE 27 C(OUR + TES)AN (set rev.) 28 anag.
DOWN 1 [p]AU[l] + DI(T)ED 2 VIC(A + R)IOUS 3 rev. 4 INSC(RIB)E (since anag.) 5 [s]-END-S 6 SOP(RAN)O 7 anag. 8 anag. 15 TEAK + [n]ETTLE 16 RE(SIDE)NT 17 DIV(ORCE)E (core anag.) 19 “word” 21 hidden 22 anag. 23 [t]ALPS (rev.) 25 initial letters
Joshua Kosman and Henri PicciottoJoshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto are The Nation’s puzzlers. To read more about Kosman, click here. To read more about Picciotto, click here. Kosman and Picciotto explain what they’re up to in “Solving The Nation’s Cryptic Crosswords” (also available as a PDF). Check out The Nation’s Current Issue page each week for the latest puzzle.