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A Quintessential meta

◆ · By woozy · Published 2023-01-24T05:28:04.336Z

Meta Prompt
The answer is this meta's quintessence.
This concept came to me when I was half asleep. It took a while to figure out a meta-mechanism that would work with the concept but I finally came up with one. I hope you find this a unique and original metanism. It's weird but it will tie together.
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  • Mr Tex solved 2023-01-25T00:52:21.275Z
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Comments

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  • whimsy 19:34 · 2023-01-28T20:37:44.160Z
    I hit "Reveal" because I really didn't know what you were going for, but I really liked the fun of gradually seeing how you were building upon each element to create the secondary definition. All the way across or down. Neat!
    • woozy constructor · 2023-01-29T18:35:06.225Z
      Ah, well. Thank you. I'll include a full explanation. In a comment.
      • woozy constructor · 2023-01-29T18:49:35.531Z
        Hmm, I thought I had disabled reveal for a week..... Oh, well.
      • woozy constructor · 2023-01-29T18:47:51.986Z
        There are four entries that refer the four classic elements. EARTH; WATER; AIR; and FIRE. Each such entry has as secondary clue that refers to a word of phrase that is formed by the three entries in that line: unEARTHed; noW AT ERst; impAIRment; and bonFIRE night.
        5D refers to a "removed clue". And quintessence and quintessential derive from and literally mean, the concept of a "Fifth Element".
        So..... The removed clue that is not included in this grid would be: FIFTH ELEMENT; Disease prevention by DNA modification. And there'd be a row of entries that along with the name of the fifth element would answer the clue "Disease prevention by DNA modification".
        In the center row we have entries GEN and APY with a row of five blank spaces. If we insert the name of the Fifth Element into it we get:
        genE THERapy.
        ETHER (or Aether) is the fifth element in classical Greek philosophy and therefore the answer to the meta.
        Play today's daily mini crossword
        1A
        Successor of the League of Nations
        1
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        77
        Across
        1. 1A
          Successor of the League of Nations
        2. 3A
          FIRST ELEMENT; dug up
        3. 8A
          Bk. Lrning
        4. 10A
          Drink also known as Bubble Tea
        5. 12A
          Rummage through Grandma's closet and pretend to by
        6. 15A
          Yoked cattle
        7. 16A
          West Point initials
        8. 17A
          "Architect of the nuclear age" Enrico
        9. 19A
          Defender of air space over U.S. and Canada
        10. 21A
          Negative contraction
        11. 22A
          When Tabitha Twichit's children lost their clothing to Jemima Paddle-duck and her sisters, Moppet and Mittens laid the blame ------.
        12. 23A
          Classical Guitarist Adres
        13. 26A
          Each; per unit; at a go
        14. 27A
          My bestest
        15. 30A
          Three score and ten
        16. 32A
          "gasp Lieutenant Smash!" Yeah, that's right. Lieutenant--- Smash."
        17. 33A
          Stage-name of Tracy Lauren Marrow
        18. 35A
          Wayland Flowers' ventriloquist dummy
        19. 36A
          Insight cry
        20. 38A
          Flowers involved in a sex scandal that actually helped the political candidate. (Now that's a clue taylored for the ---- Xer's)
        21. 40A
          Real rate of return (taking compound interest into account) abbr.
        22. 42A
          Direction from your forehead to your left ear
        23. 44A
          "Conditional on my ability"
        24. 50A
          Back end
        25. 52A
          What @ denotes
        26. 53A
          Multiple spouses (like the ones Large Amelia has?)
        27. 54A
          If a crossword clue mentions hockey the entry is probably this
        28. 55A
          Fargo's St.
        29. 57A
          Mechanical beings in RUR
        30. 59A
          Muppet Eagle
        31. 61A
          Elba who affected a Baltimore accent on "The Wire"
        32. 63A
          Even
        33. 64A
          33 rpm disc
        34. 66A
          Exist
        35. 67A
          Float through the air
        36. 68A
          "Squawk Box" network
        37. 70A
          "Just try and stop me"
        38. 72A
          In heated competition
        39. 74A
          "was to be" in "That which was to be shown"
        40. 75A
          Nope
        41. 76A
          SECOND ELEMENT; at this present time, according to Chaucer
        42. 77A
          More common than Rd., Ave., Bld., of Dr.
        Down
        1. 1D
          "Der ----mensch"; Nietzsche concept. (Honestly, I never understood why the ride-share app chose that name)
        2. 2D
          Grandmas
        3. 3D
          Ending for academic Internet domains
        4. 4D
          Old French musical style that's Latin for "new art"
        5. 5D
          In this meta, what the clue "Disease prevention by DNA modification" has been
        6. 6D
          Alexandra was the last one
        7. 7D
          Secondary 8A Inst.
        8. 8D
          City in the Congo basin (anagram of E -PANE; yeah... like that's a thing....)
        9. 9D
          A standard feature of Irish pubs
        10. 10D
          French for "good"
        11. 11D
          Kitchenware brand that won't help you in tic-tac-toe
        12. 13D
          What an airplane would be if we couldn't identify it (but since we can, it's not)
        13. 14D
          Unblemished and wrinkle-free
        14. 18D
          Mischievous sprite
        15. 20D
          French for "of" or "any" (pl.)
        16. 24D
          Precious stone (... hey! that's the name of my dog--- "Precious Stone"... it's a long and boring story. But a cute dog... sadly, she is currently having kidney failure and won't be around after a few months. But it's nice to roll over in the night and feel her lying against me.... but I digress....)
        17. 25D
          20s dispenser
        18. 27D
          FOURTH ELEMENT; Nov. 5 in Britain
        19. 28D
          Cooling unit
        20. 29D
          Herbivorous
        21. 31D
          Supporting vote
        22. 34D
          A title for Oz' principal academic. H.M. means the Woggle-bug is Highly Magnified and the ---- means.... well he's complete in his book learning.
        23. 37D
          THIRD ELEMENT; hinderance
        24. 39D
          Pencil tip
        25. 41D
          Side a 31D vote is for
        26. 43D
          Wildcat Kelly desired to straddle his old this underneath the western skies.
        27. 45D
          Popular Christmas tree
        28. 46D
          What Lady Gaga said to Liz Minnelli at the 2022 Academy Awards (It may have been upstaged by Chris Rock's "Will Smith just smacked the #### out of me")
        29. 47D
          Kitchen cubby
        30. 48D
          One-celled organism
        31. 49D
          "All the news that is fit to print"
        32. 51D
          Qatar's peninsula
        33. 55D
          After dusk
        34. 56D
          Informal friendly (possibly condescending) term of address
        35. 58D
          Website with over 20,000 articles about the game of Go, familiarly
        36. 60D
          Suffix that forms nouns from adjectives
        37. 62D
          Mathematical collection
        38. 65D
          Desserts with crusts
        39. 69D
          It may be written once and read many times
        40. 71D
          He played "the wise janitor" in "Not Another Teen Movie"
        41. 73D
          Hey! That hurt!
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