Wordy Wednesday 339: Snake Crisscross 10

WORDY WEDNESDAY #337

ANACROSSWORD 20 (answer)

Here is the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Cindy Heisler **
James Haddad **
Joe Bernard **
Mark Ballinger **
Bryce Herdt **
Izak Bulten **
Kevin Orfield **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
Stephen Potter **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #338

PATHFINDER 19 (hint)

As of this writing, 11 people have solved this puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #339

SNAKE CRISSCROSS 10

(click here for a PDF version)

This puzzle's crisscross grid contains entries which read across and down as normal; these words are defined in alphabetical order by length under the heading “Crisscross Words.” The grid also contains a number of “snakes”: areas which follow a single clear path. Each of these snakes contains an entry which snakes from one end of the path to the other. These entries are defined under the heading “Snake Words”, and are also clued in alphabetical order by length. You must determine how the grid is divided into snakes; no two snakes overlap.

Arrange the letters in the highlighted cells to form the final answer, an 8-letter word.

CRISSCROSS WORDS
3 LETTERS
Item attached to an electric guitar, perhaps
Joan of ____
“The Wheels on the ___” (children’s song)
Young lady
“____ the Music Play” (Shannon song)
____ the Mark (newspaper comic)
Emulate Cardi B
4 LETTERS
“Woe!”
Liberal ____
Umbilical ____
Crazy
Input a phone number
One sixteenth of an ounce
A small biting fly
Sword handle
Adult female horse
What a color-changing ring is supposed to indicate
Hideous fairy tale creature that eats humans
Relatives of mice
____-esteem
Food for pigs
Mineral that’s a 1 on the Mohs Hardness Scale
To ____ the Truth (game show)
Gratuities, as for waitpersons
Ring, as a bell
A whole lot
Neat
5 LETTERS
____ Management (2003 movie)
Joint between the foot and the leg
Pleasant smell
Freight
Run away to wed in secret
Avarice
Dome-shaped Inuit dwelling
Wrathful
Andean wool animal
Cuban ballroom dance
Beverage brand originally known as Brad's Drink
Not relaxed
Capturing devices
6 LETTERS
Last section of a symphony, say
2007 game that introduced GLaDOS
Baseball referee
7 LETTERS
Earthworm, for example
____ shorts (knee-length shorts)
Item in a theater
Generally
Very old phonograph record material
8 LETTERS
Jerry Seinfeld, for one

SNAKE WORDS
5 LETTERS
Share an opinion
Ration
Grouchy person
Keaton of Annie Hall
Confessions of a Teenage ____ Queen (2004 movie)
1941 movie whence the song “Look Out for Mr. Stork”
Dreariness
Thunberg of “How dare you!” fame
Type of puzzle where pictures represent words
____ Catholic
m, in y=mx+b
Ill will
“____ Me Up” (Rolling Stones song)
Cliché in a work of fiction
6 LETTERS
Nook
One initiating a phone conversation
Big name in hotels
Xylophonist’s need
Some firearms
Seasoned sausage
Noise-making devices on police cars
7 LETTERS
Friendly
Far from luxurious
Odd
8 LETTERS
Flower related to the narcissus
12 LETTERS
The second First Lady to be born outside the USA (Louisa Catherine Adams being the first): 2 wds.
13 LETTERS
Certain quadrilateral

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* What's a 5-letter word for "'____ and Nail' (Foreigner song)"?
* Patron Puzzle #71, which will be delivered exclusively to Patreon supporters ($5 or more per month), is a crossword called "Party Time".

Submit your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com. Until next time, keep on living, and yappy solving!

Contest: Let's Guess Two Words! (Week 3 update!)

For full rules, see here.

Week 0:
The set of all words starting with a letter in the word PRIME: NEITHER
The set of all words with a prime number of letters: ONE
The set of all words with a prime number of distinct letters: BOTH

Week 1:
[Bryce Herdt] The set of all words that use one or more of J, Q, X, and Z: NEITHER
[Daniel Levitin] The set of all words of length at most 10: BOTH
[Jason Boomer] The set of all words beginning with a letter on the home row of a QWERTY keyboard (ASDFGHJKL): ONE
[John Bulten] The set of all words ending with a letter alphabetically between Q and Z inclusive: NEITHER
[Kenneth Wilson] The set of all words containing at least one of the letters U, V, W, X, Y, or Z: ONE
[Kevin Orfield] The set of all words where the number of letters in the word is at least two greater than the number of distinct letters: NEITHER
[Roger Strain] The set of all words in which all instances of A, E, I, O, and U appear in alphabetical order (examples: ANIMUS, FED, FEED, RHYTHM): BOTH
[Sam Levitin] The set of all words of length 7 or more: NEITHER

Week 2:
[Bryce Herdt] The set of all words composed only of letters (with possible repeats) from ETAOIN SHRDLU: NEITHER
[Daniel Levitin] The set of all words where are least three of the letters are A, E, I, O, or U: NEITHER
[Jason Boomer] The set of all words in which the second letter is A, E, I, O, or U: ONE
[John Bulten] The set of all words in which the second-to-last letter is A, E, I, O, or U: NEITHER
[Kenneth Wilson] The set of all words beginning with a letter in the word GHOST: ONE
[Kevin Orfield] The set of all words which both start and end with consonants (letters other than A, E, I, O, or U): ONE
[Roger Strain] The set of all words containing at least one of "R", "S", "T", "L", "N" or "E": BOTH
[Sam Levitin] The set of all words where exactly two of the letters are A, E, I, O, or U: ONE
[Stephen Potter] The set of all words that start with A, E, I, O, or U: NEITHER

Week 3:
[Bryce Herdt] The set of all words alphabetically after RANDOM: ONE
[Daniel Levitin] The set of all words containing R or L: BOTH
[Jason Boomer] [private guess of a set of 9 words]: NEITHER
[John Bulten] The set of all words containing C or L: BOTH
[Kenneth Wilson] The set of all words beginning with a letter in the word MISBEHAVING: ONE
[Kevin Orfield] The set of all words beginning with a letter in the word DAFT: NEITHER
[Sam Levitin] The set of all words of length exactly 4: ONE

The money pool for the Food Bank of West Central Texas is now $36.

Submit more guesses!

Wordy Wednesday 338: Pathfinder 19

WORDY WEDNESDAY #336

SECTION SIX 33 (answer)

Here is the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Bonnie Veenschoten **
Cindy Heisler **
James Haddad *
Joe Bernard **
Mark Ballinger **
Bryce Herdt **
Eric Maddy **
Izak Bulten **
Kevin Orfield **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
Stephen Potter **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #337

ANACROSSWORD 20 (hint)

As of this writing, 10 people have solved this puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #338

PATHFINDER 19

(click here for a PDF version)

In this puzzle, each answer starts in the correspondingly numbered square, goes in some direction, and makes one or more right-angled turns as it winds through the grid. When you have finished, every letter will be used in exactly two entries.

Rearrange the letters in the shaded spaces to get the final answer, an 8-letter word.

1 Blue line with triangles on a weather map (4 5)
2 Pigpens (5)
3 Poem in which the first letter of each line spells something (8)
4 Bacterial disease in the small intestine (7)
5 Rough drawing (6)
6 Willy of Free Willy, for one (4)
7 Put up with (8)
8 Hairstyle associated with Bob Marley (10)
9 A detergent brand (4)
10 Tug-of-war need (4)
11 Wool grease (7)
12 The Red Sea, to the Indian Ocean (5)
13 Gives up (8)
14 Doglike (6)
15 Prejudicial ill will (6)
16 According to him, the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I'm from the government and I'm here to help” (6 6)
17 ____ of the doubt (7)
18 “Tyrannosaurus ____” (Schoolhouse Rock! song about the money the U.S. government owes) (4)
18 A person’s head, slangily (4)
19 Alanis Morissette hit (6)
20 “Detroit Rock ____” (Kiss song) (4)
21 Robin, for one (6)
21 Navel-shaped stuffed pasta (10)
22 ____ hippopotamus (5)
23 Word following “magic” or “button” (8)
23 2002 sci-fi flick about a police unit that arrests future murderers (8 6)
24 Nursery ____ (5)
25 Drywall mineral (6)

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* What's a 5-letter word for "Beverage brand originally known as Brad's Drink"?

Submit your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com. Until next time, keep on living, and yappy solving!

Contest: Let's Guess Two Words! (Week 2 update!)

For full rules, see here.

Week 0:
The set of all words starting with a letter in the word PRIME: NEITHER
The set of all words with a prime number of letters: ONE
The set of all words with a prime number of distinct letters: BOTH

Week 1:
[Bryce Herdt] The set of all words that use one or more of J, Q, X, and Z: NEITHER
[Daniel Levitin] The set of all words of length at most 10: BOTH
[Jason Boomer] The set of all words beginning with a letter on the home row of a QWERTY keyboard (ASDFGHJKL): ONE
[John Bulten] The set of all words ending with a letter alphabetically between Q and Z inclusive: NEITHER
[Kenneth Wilson] The set of all words containing at least one of the letters U, V, W, X, Y, or Z: ONE
[Kevin Orfield] The set of all words where the number of letters in the word is at least two greater than the number of distinct letters: NEITHER
[Roger Strain] The set of all words in which all instances of A, E, I, O, and U appear in alphabetical order (examples: ANIMUS, FED, FEED, RHYTHM): BOTH
[Sam Levitin] The set of all words of length 7 or more: NEITHER

Week 2:
[Bryce Herdt] The set of all words composed only of letters (with possible repeats) from ETAOIN SHRDLU: NEITHER
[Daniel Levitin] The set of all words where are least three of the letters are A, E, I, O, or U: NEITHER
[Jason Boomer] The set of all words in which the second letter is A, E, I, O, or U: ONE
[John Bulten] The set of all words in which the second-to-last letter is A, E, I, O, or U: NEITHER
[Kenneth Wilson] The set of all words beginning with a letter in the word GHOST: ONE
[Kevin Orfield] The set of all words which both start and end with consonants (letters other than A, E, I, O, or U): ONE
[Roger Strain] The set of all words containing at least one of "R", "S", "T", "L", "N" or "E": BOTH
[Sam Levitin] The set of all words where exactly two of the letters are A, E, I, O, or U: ONE
[Stephen Potter] The set of all words that start with A, E, I, O, or U: NEITHER

The money pool for the Food Bank of West Central Texas is now $39.

Submit more guesses!

Wordy Wednesday 337: Anacrossword 20

WORDY WEDNESDAY #334

PATHFINDER 18 (answer)

Here is the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Cindy Heisler **
Gordon Glenn **
Joe Bernard **
Mark Ballinger **
Bryce Herdt **
Eric Maddy *
Izak Bulten *
James Haddad **
Kevin Orfield **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
Stephen Potter **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #335

PENT WORDS 67 (answer)

Here is the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Cindy Heisler **
Joe Bernard **
Mark Ballinger **
Bryce Herdt **
Eric Maddy *
Izak Bulten *
Kevin Orfield **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
Stephen Potter **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #336

SECTION SIX 33 (hint)

As of this writing, 11 people have solved this puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #337

ANACROSSWORD 20

(click here for a PDF version)

This puzzle contains a word suggested by patron M. Sean Molley. Support me on Patreon at the $5 per month level and solve the monthly Patron Puzzle for a chance to suggest a seed word for a future puzzle, or at the $20 per month level to suggest one seed word every month!

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98
Initial poker stake
Feature between the front seats of a car, often
Bathroom fixture that increased in popularity in 2020 after toilet paper became scarce
Pattern applied to military equipment to make it blend in with its surroundings
Clergy
Anal injection
Ranked structure
Ungulate feature
The ____ Letters (1942 C. S. Lewis work)
“Children should be ____ and not heard”
A religious belief
Melt
____ compactor
Cautionary statement that accompanies content that might disturb certain readers: 2 wds.
Marine vessel for towing things
Relieve one’s anger, perhaps
Jon Talbain of Darkstalkers, for one
Laughing cartoon bird created by Walter Lantz: 2 wds.

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* What's a 10-letter word for "Hairstyle associated with Bob Marley"?

Submit your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com. Until next time, keep on living, and yappy solving!

Contest: Let's Guess Two Words! (Week 1 update!)

For full rules, see here.

Week 0:
The set of all words starting with a letter in the word PRIME: NEITHER
The set of all words with a prime number of letters: ONE
The set of all words with a prime number of distinct letters: BOTH

Week 1:
[Bryce Herdt] The set of all words that use one or more of J, Q, X, and Z: NEITHER
[Daniel Levitin] The set of all words of length at most 10: BOTH
[Jason Boomer] The set of all words beginning with a letter on the home row of a QWERTY keyboard (ASDFGHJKL): ONE
[John Bulten] The set of all words ending with a letter alphabetically between Q and Z inclusive: NEITHER
[Kenneth Wilson] The set of all words containing at least one of the letters U, V, W, X, Y, or Z: ONE
[Kevin Orfield] The set of all words where the number of letters in the word is at least two greater than the number of distinct letters: NEITHER
[Roger Strain] The set of all words in which all instances of A, E, I, O, and U appear in alphabetical order (examples: ANIMUS, FED, FEED, RHYTHM): BOTH
[Sam Levitin] The set of all words of length 7 or more: NEITHER

The money pool for the Food Bank of West Central Texas is now $42.

Submit more guesses!

Wordy Wednesday 336: Section Six 33

WORDY WEDNESDAY #333

HEX PATHFINDER 21 (answer)

Here is the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Cindy Heisler **
Joe Bernard **
M. Sean Molley **
Mark Ballinger **
Bryce Herdt **
James Haddad **
Kevin Orfield **
Michael Avanessian **
Patrick Jordan *
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
Stephen Potter **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #334

PATHFINDER 18 (hint)

As of this writing, 10 people have solved this puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #335

PENT WORDS 67 (hint)

As of this writing, 8 people have solved this puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #336

SECTION SIX 33

(click here for a PDF version)

This puzzle's grid has six rings and six sections. Each ring contains a series of words placed end to end, reading either clockwise or counterclockwise; all the words in a given ring will read in the same direction. Ring 1 (the outer ring) contains six answers that read clockwise; the starting spaces are numbered in the grid. Clues for the answers in the remaining rings are given in order, but their starting points and direction are for you to determine. The sections (separated by the heavy lines radiating from the center) will help you place the inner rings: in a given section, each ring segment contains all but one of the letters in the next segment outward. In other words, a section's outermost segment contains six letters; the next segment inward contains five of those six letters in some order; and so on, until only one of the original six letters remains.

Arrange the letters in the six starred spaces to form the final answer, a 6-letter word.

Ring 1
1 Country in which the world's deepest lake, Lake Baikal, is located
2 "You ____ with Me" (Taylor Swift song)
3 Pig saved by Charlotte in Charlotte's Web
4 Home of the NFL's Broncos
5 Fox of the WWE
6 Absolutely anger

Ring 2
* Bob of This Old House
* Recoil in response to something truly awful
* Atmosphere
* Brother or sister
* Women's undergarment brand

Ring 3
* Pen points
* Dispute
* Big international cruise line
* City in Victoria, Australia that shares its name with a boxer

Ring 4
* An assertion that something is false
* The Himalayas, for one
* ____ Cane's (chicken restaurant chain)

Ring 5
* ____ alcohol (ethanol)
* ____ Jones and the Last Crusade

Ring 6
* One of 33 in the longest game in professional baseball history, played in 1981 between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* What laughing cartoon bird was created by Walter Lantz?

Submit your answers to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com. Until next time, keep on living, and yappy solving!

Contest: Let's Guess Two Words!

I am thinking of two English words that are at least 2 letters long and no more than 15 letters long. Both words are valid in Scrabble according to https://scrabble.merriam.com/. Your goal is to guess them. Everyone who guesses the pair of words correctly by the time the contest is over will be entered for a chance to win a copy of my board game Mammalath (with the Mammalath Plus expansion).

Once per week, each and every single person reading this blog post is allowed to e-mail a set of words to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com. If it is a set of at least 10 words, I will publicly post on this blog (on the following Monday at 12:01 AM Central time) whether NEITHER of my words, ONE of my words, or BOTH of my words are in that set. If it is a set of 9 words or fewer, I will privately give you the same information. If I can't easily verify whether a set of words has at least 10 words in it, I will assume it does, so if you want your information kept private, submit your set of words in the form "{CINQ, QADI, QAID, QATS, QOPH}" rather than "the set of all Scrabble-legal 4-letter words with a Q and not a U".

Once someone has guessed the pair of words (that is, submitted to me a set of exactly two words and gotten a result of BOTH), one last weekly update will be posted on this blog, and then people who haven't guessed the words yet will have one more week to try to do so and be entered in the prize drawing.

To encourage people to make public guesses rather than private guesses (and thereby hopefully finish the contest faster), this contest will also benefit the Food Bank of West Central Texas. The money pool which I will donate to them will start at $45, and then go down $3 for every weekly update that has gone by without someone guessing the pair of words. If the money pool would hit $0, I will instead withdraw the prize drawing (and note to myself for future reference to give you guys more time next time). So even if you aren't interested in the prize drawing, your participation may help someone else solve the words faster and thus help charity!

To kick things off, I'll make three guesses for you:

The set of all words starting with a letter in the word PRIME: NEITHER
The set of all words with a prime number of letters: ONE
The set of all words with a prime number of distinct letters: BOTH

Good luck, and yappy guessing!