Explanation: Six of the 6-letter entries' clues (DELANO, SCRIBE, SASHES, THORAX, ORANGE, BRACES) contain the word "middle." The middle 4 letters of those 6-letter entries form new words: ELAN, CRIB, ASHE, HORA, RANG, RACE. Play alternates in the entry with those. Those entries, with initial letters in standard top-down order: RACE = WHIZ, HORA = IRISHJIG, CRIB = DIRT, ELAN = ENERGY, ASHE = SAMPRAS, RANG = TOLLED. The initial letters of those entries spell WIDEST, another 6-letter word. But the prompt asks for a 4-letter word! Take the center of that word to form the apropos IDES, the answer to the meta!
Meg 4s · 2025-03-15T00:44:27.120Z
This solution revealed itself like a lizard shedding its skin. Thanks, Mikey!
Silly me. I went for the TWO letter middles and tried EVERYTHING I could think of, including trying to make three four letter words out of the middle letters. It was Kay who suggested that, not unlike what age has done to my body, the middle can be much wider. I immediately recognized the words and since I had been looking at so many different possibilities as I read the clues over and over, I knew all the alternates already. The WIDEST threw me off for a second (nice misdirection sir!) but then I looked at the date on the capture. BEWARE!
Thanks Mikey and even greater thanks Kay because it was making me nuts!!!
I spotted Delano with "middle" in the clue and then took the middle two letters, but then as I was thinking "what if I took four?" my eye caught "verve" in the clues and I was off to the races! A satisfying solve. Thanks, Mikey.