Clues we might use for this word include ‘Night-time outings restriction’ or ‘After-hours travel ban’, but a curfew started as a law aimed at preventing villages burning down.
The word’s origin is in the Old French couvre-feu meaning ‘cover-fire’. In medieval times fires were precious for lighting, heating and cooking. Crude wooden houses with thatched [more…]
Hi,
With words ending in either ‘er’ or ‘or’, is there any rule which determines which is the correct usage?
Or is it merely happenchance like so much of our language?
I am an avid fan of your puzzles, so thank you for them.
Progression of Multiple Sclerosis has depleted the use of my writing hand, so over the past year I have taught myself to use my left.
Oddly enough, the squares of the puzzles have been a great help, enabling me to re-size the letters [more…]
Good news this month for anyone whose birthday falls on 29th February – this is a leap year so you can celebrate your birthday on the correct day instead of 28th February or 1st March. Or maybe you don’t mind not having a birthday, because you claim to be only a quarter of your [more…]
Sibyl’s prophecy for a Stinker
A simple spelling mistake caught out some Stinker-lovers at 1dn. ‘Prophetess’ needed SIBYL not SYBIL. Sibyl’s were depicted as old women who lived in caves making prophecies. The most famous was the one who assisted Aeneas in his journey to the underworld.
Another often misspelt name caught out others of you [more…]
Magnificent Monster
The Double Monster is one of your favourite contests, combining the fun of cracking the code in the Monster Starhunt, with the challenge of unravelling the clues in the Monster Colossus.
With so many clues to solve it is no surprise when a few errors appear.
At 33dn the clue ‘False doctrines’ needed HERESIES and [more…]
Keeping the judges honest
Judging the competition entries always results in much discussion around words and meanings. Sometimes things get a little heated, but we always come to a decision and are as kind as we can be, while still being fair to all entrants. This month’s entries provided much brain-stretching for our team.
At 1dn [more…]
Teeing up the clues
In the Cashwords, for ‘Arranged, … up’ at 170dn, we accepted both TEED and TIED. Tee comes from the sporting world. A tee is a stand for a ball, perhaps the best known being the golfer’s tee. A golfer tees up and tees off.
Arranged can also be to tie up, [more…]
Akimbo is a stance with hands on hips and elbows turned out, usually showing impatience or defiance.
Akimbo is an old word that is only heard in this phrase, or very occasionally and more recently, as ‘legs akimbo’. Another such example is ‘aback’, which only occurs in ‘taken aback’.
In Middle English akimbo appeared as kenebowe [more…]
