[Level 3] The answer to the meta, an 11-letter adjective illustrated by the grid, is what I hope you find this puzzle to be.
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oldjudge solved 2023-08-19T17:01:31.339Z
Hector solved 2023-08-19T17:12:48.663Z
BrennerTJ solved 2023-08-19T17:22:01.566Z
KayW solved 2023-08-19T17:31:37.544Z
Philip Chow solved 2023-08-19T17:38:39.215Z
merlinnimue solved 2023-08-19T17:42:00.575Z
FrankieHeck solved 2023-08-19T17:42:31.576Z
Pair O Ducks solved 2023-08-19T18:14:36.496Z
Cindy Weatherman solved 2023-08-19T19:00:56.327Z
Meg solved 2023-08-19T19:03:38.426Z
spotter solved 2023-08-19T19:05:40.293Z
boharr solved 2023-08-19T19:30:26.216Z
CPJohnson solved 2023-08-19T23:44:48.002Z
I K Snamhcok solved 2023-08-20T00:47:00.098Z
Cindy Heisler solved 2023-08-20T01:02:35.260Z
benchen71 solved 2023-08-20T12:32:16.719Z
Abide solved 2023-08-20T12:46:08.150Z
Bob J solved 2023-08-20T12:57:51.598Z
Schmeel solved 2023-08-20T17:48:41.719Z
Darth solved 2023-08-20T19:59:43.642Z
MatthewL solved 2023-08-20T21:41:22.626Z
markhr solved 2023-08-20T21:49:17.553Z
woozy solved 2023-08-21T01:47:42.980Z
DJB solved 2023-08-21T12:16:25.847Z
Myelbow solved 2023-08-21T14:14:09.595Z
JM solved 2023-08-22T22:23:12.758Z
BarbaraK solved 2023-08-23T03:12:08.805Z
Berto solved 2023-08-23T08:20:13.847Z
Laura M solved 2023-08-23T16:34:12.448Z
DIS solved 2023-08-23T16:35:29.946Z
JR solved 2023-08-23T18:46:25.000Z
andeux solved 2023-08-23T19:50:56.559Z
lbray53 solved 2023-08-23T21:05:39.790Z
hoover solved 2023-08-23T21:44:52.452Z
SamKat9 solved 2023-08-24T00:27:28.811Z
Toast solved 2023-08-24T00:40:00.346Z
Katiedid solved 2023-08-24T01:31:55.740Z
kurtalert solved 2023-08-24T14:18:11.855Z
Cate C solved 2023-08-24T16:30:00.457Z
DrTom solved 2023-08-24T22:47:15.908Z
Tyrpmom solved 2023-08-24T23:22:55.737Z
whimsy solved 2023-08-25T01:29:25.313Z
rjy solved 2023-08-25T02:08:04.790Z
ReB solved 2023-08-25T02:40:43.648Z
Darrell solved 2023-08-25T04:04:44.397Z
Qmark solved 2023-08-25T22:03:08.010Z
Capn Rick solved 2023-08-26T01:47:14.959Z
Joe solved 2023-08-26T02:58:54.548Z
Tom Wilson solved 2023-08-26T14:42:25.164Z
Bbaack solved 2023-08-27T23:09:55.112Z
Comments
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oldjudge 3s · 2023-08-19T17:04:44.580Z
Great job, Mikey! Thanks for the boundless joy your puzzles bring.
KayW 🤓6:46 · 2023-08-19T17:32:19.165Z
OMG!!! what a brilliant puzzle. I saw all the EDGEs and it took me a while to come up with an 11-letter adjective to fit.
merlinnimue 🤓5:07 · 2023-08-19T17:51:21.447Z
nice one as usual... spotted the metanism early on but couldn't pin down the exact phrase (i tried double-edged and edge-trimmed first)... then i ran down another rabbit hole seeing other possibilities for the edges (like zone/cruz or sin/bans & din/band)... i feel like theres a recent trend in puzzles that are *suggestive* of the meta instead of pinning it exactly, which makes it harder for a dumdum like me, but i guess i just gotta get good (or at least mediocre, fingers crossed)
Yeah, this was a bit different in that regard; I think Wendy Walker (from Muggles) has distinguished them as visual metas and...I forget the other term but metas that directly spell the answer out. Thanks for solving!
Merriam-Webster has the noun as two words and the adjective as hyphenated. So technically correct but maybe unnecessarily devious. (My second submission was “There’s no friggin edge ”)
This really was a masterful construction! I'm a bit miffed that I didn't consider that an 11-letter adjective could be a compound hyphen and I needed Ben to give me a nudge to my question "So it's just word play and this point, right, I need to find a pun-ish adjective that means something about cutting edges or something like that, right?"
A very very ingenuous construction.
Berto 🤓3:00 · 2023-08-23T08:23:49.281Z
I needed some gentle pushing through this one, found the metanism, but only after being told the answer was hyphenated did it come to me (immediately). Guess that will be the final nudge thrown out?! Reminded me of Look Both Ways! Thanks Mikey!
I was torn about putting "hyphenated" in the prompt. Probably should have in retrospect. Yeah, this was made before that one but always fun when the connections come into play like that!!
Laura M 🤓7:32 · 2023-08-23T16:39:19.653Z
I thought my first guess of "educational" (edge-ucational) wasn't too bad! But I needed nudge #7 to finally get to the correct adjective. None of the 11-letter word lists I was looking at included hyphens...
Great puzzle! I initially had a zillion surplus Es around the edges but it took a bit to notice other letters that fit patterns. The hardest part of the puzzle may have been not realizing that cuttingedge has ever been thought of as one word! LOL. It's a perfect answer, though, given the metanism.
whimsy 🤓8:51 · 2023-08-25T01:41:25.422Z
Same here. I had only Es -- 22 of them -- and was trying to imagine what that depicted -- a picket fence? Only with the nudge about a 4 letter word, over and over, could I work it out. Glad I did because it was quite the puzzle! Thanks, Mikey!
Well that was (1) difficult (2) brilliant. You have no idea how many different combos of E??E I had (lots will ALMOST work). Then I had a mental block because I could not make the three row parts work out until I realized that making the E the last in the row and first in the column satisfied it (as I say. mental block). Even when I had it I submitted the wrong answer because I was sure that it would be, like the puzzle itself, cutting edge. Obviously LEADING edge was better, but cutting edge describes it to a T. I'm not even going to guess how long this took to make. I have an idea how you did it but I am sure I would not have had the patience to. My constructor AND solver hats are both tipped to you sir!
This one did take a bit! I made it earlier this year. Would've liked a bit cleaner fill in the middle of the grid, but some of that was necessary to accommodate things like PRESSON(E) and CLEMENT(E), I think. Thank you for your kind words!!
Tyrpmom 2s · 2023-08-24T23:25:39.023Z
Geesh that was a struggle, but I love the answer.
ReB 3s · 2023-08-25T02:47:01.748Z
Brilliant to be able to surround the entire puzzle with the same repeated word. Was close to finding edge after the second set of nudges, knew the first and letter letter had to be E, but couldn't quite find the other two letters. Nudge eight forced me to find the correct positioning of the word, and then I realized that it had to be EDGE, which of course made total sense in retrospect. Not many candidates for an 11-letter adjective after that, and CUTTING seemed the most appropriate beginning based on the title.
Yeah, when you have "EDGE" at the end, and you realize they are disappearing and that I was "cutting" them...that's pretty much what you need!
Qmark 3s · 2023-08-25T22:05:16.325Z
Thanks Mikey! I had the metanism of the missing letters around the outside but got stuck trying to use "ET"s everywhere...which of course kept me stuck in a rabbit hole. Need the second set of nudges (not the 3rd) to let me know it was the same 4 letter word in all places to help me find the path to the finish line.