Oh very clever! I was confused when I had EATINMATING for a while, and counted only 4 spanners, and then the aha. I shouldn't've expected anything non-sus (or should have?). Good work you two!
I ended up with… MAGINEERING. Didn’t even bother counting the spanners. I had a bit of a Schrödinger suspicion when I realized that both ROW and TOW made sense.