Explanation: The six starred entries RAPID, BERING, DAY, CANAL, ELAND, and DUAL can all become a synonym of "drab" or on that ilk with one letter changed: VAPID, BORING, DRY, BANAL, BLAND, DULL. Then, find a 3-letter word in the grid that has both the new letter and the replaced letter, in some order, for each of these words: REV, JOE, JAR, CUB, BEN, ALE. The extra letters, in standard top-down order, give us JEJUNE, the June-themed (albeit dull and uninspiring, haha) answer to the meta!
markhr 🤓2:24 · 2024-06-15T18:49:17.039Z
Fun puzzle.
Meg 2s · 2024-06-15T19:30:49.446Z
Based on 3 letters. Have to figure out the other 3
i quite liked the multistep metanism... and the meta answer is such a sparkly word for a boring definition... not jejune at all! not wanting to consult a thesaurus, "dry" took me the longest to figure out
I love words lol. I have a list on my phone of over 1000 (I just confirmed via Excel!) of cool words I find organically. I can't just look up "500 cool words" since that defeats the purpose. I think "jejune" was discovered in "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" - Zevin used an amazing panoply of words in that one!
boharr 12s · 2024-06-15T22:16:44.862Z
Cool. Thanks Mikey
Qmark 3s · 2024-06-16T01:00:42.976Z
Quite a challenge Mikey! Was happy (and a bit surprised) that my thoughts kept me on the right path to the meta answer. Thanks!
I think the initial seed was in the MGWCC with the countries - how some entries were a country but off by a letter. I often have thought, "Find a 3-letter word," and I don't know if that's ever worked. So I made it into a mechanism, haha.
lbray53 2s · 2024-06-16T11:58:09.367Z
As often happens to me, I had the answer written down in my notes staring at me. I did not recognize that as a word for the longest time.
I was happy to come upon step one right away. I was ecstatic to figure out step two. (GO CUBS GO!) I must have tried every combination of entries and clues (TAMWQR is not a word?) before I finally saw it.
This puzzle was anything but drab! (But we all know to expect nothing less by now.) Had to sleep on it to find step two, but that only made the aha more delightful. Thanks, Mikey!
Got the 6 synonyms of DRAB and then was hoping to use substitution mechanics for 6 synonyms of BAG. I found the first one JACK --> SACK! :D Didn't get very far on that! haha .... Thanks, Mikey. Have a mediocre day! ;)
Wow, now there's a word you don't see every day! I was bogged down, got the 1st part but could not make the leap. Tried the letters of both, tried alternate words...nada. Then I thought, "OK, think like a constructor. I need one letter per theme entry and the entry has two letters that define it. (light starts to go on) I think I saw CUB in there; YES I did, that has to be it."
Very well constructed and quite tricky, enjoyed solving something this week, the rest has been barren.
Nice! Needed the nudge to figure out what to do with my two sets of 6 letters, which made no sense to me previously. I shoulda gone hunting with those!