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"Take the Fifth" by Alex Eaton-Salners
Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2023 8:29 pm
by Abide
Take the Fifth by Alex Eaton-Salners
Attached is Crossword #29.
What five-letter word is hinted at by this puzzle?
Rules: Email Fireball the word no later than 6 p.m. (Eastern time) on Sunday, July 16. Lots of prizes for the randomly-drawn winner.
Subscribe to Fireball:
https://www.fireballcrosswords.com/
[I've been wrestling with this tough nut today]
Re: "Take the Fifth" by Alex Eaton-Salners
Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2023 9:55 pm
by BarbaraK
Likewise. Fun challenging grid. Nothing yet on the meta.
Re: "Take the Fifth" by Alex Eaton-Salners
Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2023 10:43 pm
by HoldThatThought
Glad I'm not the only one.
Re: "Take the Fifth" by Alex Eaton-Salners
Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2023 6:41 am
by Wendy Walker
That's where I am, too, friends.
Re: "Take the Fifth" by Alex Eaton-Salners
Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2023 7:03 am
by BarbaraK
Thought about this one while going to sleep last night. Woke up this morning sure I was on to something. Then I looked and saw that the real puzzle is quite different and doesn’t actually have the things I thought were relevant.
This is what always happens with my dreaming solutions. I’m so jealous of those who actually solve metas in their sleep.
Re: "Take the Fifth" by Alex Eaton-Salners
Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2023 5:37 pm
by Wendy Walker
Between @meg and me, I think we solved it!
Re: "Take the Fifth" by Alex Eaton-Salners
Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2023 6:15 pm
by Meg
@Wendy Walker did it!! Yay!!
Re: "Take the Fifth" by Alex Eaton-Salners
Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2023 10:24 am
by HoldThatThought
I'm up a tree without a paddle (imagine how awful that is!), but congratulations!
Re: "Take the Fifth" by Alex Eaton-Salners
Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2023 2:26 pm
by Leslie
I actually have a 5-letter word derived from a plausible meta mechanism, but there’s no click and I’m pretty sure it’s not the answer. Anyone else find a random 5-letter word at the end of a rabbit hole?
Congrats to Wendy and Meg! This seems like a tough one!
Re: "Take the Fifth" by Alex Eaton-Salners
Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2023 9:43 pm
by Wendy Walker
Thanks, @Leslie ! Meg had absolutely the right hunch about what was going on; I just did the last lap.
Re: "Take the Fifth" by Alex Eaton-Salners
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2023 7:32 pm
by Leslie
Well, I was at least halfway there. I found the five answers that were part of a series and wrote down the fifth planet, day, Greek letter, etc. But I didn’t think to use their fifth letters and instead anagrammed the first letters to get EJECT. Which I knew couldn’t be correct.
Re: "Take the Fifth" by Alex Eaton-Salners
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2023 8:29 pm
by BarbaraK
I didn't get even that far. I thought the four long answers were the theme and the answer would be the fifth thing in some series that they started.
In my sleep version of the puzzle, I was thinking numeric prefixes: unicycle, didn't know what to do with emails, had STAR instead of STONE so tristar, and something I forget that worked with quad in the fourth one. Knew I just needed to find some matching grid entries and then another that went with quint or penta. As I said, this is how my sleep-solving always turns out.
Congrats to those who got it!