BIG MONDAY CROSSWORD
ACROSS
1 Hard flap covering certain apertures, e.g. the gill
slit of a fish or the shell opening of a mollusc (9)
6 Most abundant of the sedimentary rocks, composed of successive layers of compressed mud or clay (5)
10 Capital city and chief port of Paraguay, founded
by Spanish settlers in 1537 (8)
11 Driest nonpolar desert in the world, on the Pacific coast of South America mostly within northern Chile (7)
12 Unicameral parliament of Finland, established in
1906 to replace the Diet of Finland (9)
13 Samuel ___ (1722-1803), US statesman; an instigator of the Boston Tea Party and one of the 56 signatories of the Declaration of Independence (5)
15 Quantity of matter that a body contains, measured by its resistance to changes in velocity or its influence in a gravitational field (4)
16 Hoofed mammal, either odd-toed (the perissodactyls) or even-toed (the artiodactyls) (8)
17 See 27 Down
20 Soviet space station launched on February 20, 1986 as a successor to the earlier Salyut programme (3)
22 Seventeenth letter of the Greek alphabet, derived from the Phoenician letter res (‘head’) (3)
25 Unit of weight used to measure the fineness of silk, nylon or 21 Down fibres, equal to 1 gram per 9000 metres of yarn (6)
26 Ancient Greek and Roman drink of fermented honey and water; also the French name for mead (8)
29 English public school whose pupils are either
King’s Scholars or Oppidans (4)
30 Genus of small mouse-like mammals of the
family Soricidae to which the shrews belong (5)
31 Pungent crystalline compound in peppers such as chilli, cayenne and jalapeño that gives them their heat (9)
34 Eurasian plant of the pea family (Medicago sativa) commonly used as fodder; also called lucerne (7)
35 Second-largest city and chief port of Cyprus, in
the south on Akrotiri Bay (8)
36 ‘I would/Love you ten years before the ___’ (Andrew Marvell ‘To His coy Mistress’ (1681) l. 7) (5)
37 Highest mountain in Peru, in the Cordillera
Blanca range of the western Andes (9)
DOWN
2 French post-impressionist painter who lived in self-imposed exile in Tahiti from 1895 to 1901 (4,7)
3 and 7 Roman ambassador and later general in
the 1609-10 Shakespeare play Cymbeline (5,6)
4 2021 drama film directed by and starring
actress Robin Wright (4)
5 Metallic element whose sulphate form makes up
the medicinal preparation Epsom salts (9)
6 Large flat triangular bone articulating with the clavicle at the acromioclavicular joint and the humerus at the glenohumeral joint (7)
7 See 3
8 Solution of opium in alcohol, formerly used in European medicine as an analgesic and sedative (8)
9 Smooth mixture of equal parts chocolate and cream heated and stirred together, used in cakes and confectionery (7)
14 Goddess of the moon in Greek mythology, who fell in love with the handsome youth Endymion (6)
15 See 33
18 Largest island of Turkey, in the NE Aegean near the entrance to the Dardanelles; also called Gökçeada (6)
19 Arm of the SW Pacific Ocean within the nation of Papua New Guinea, north-east of New Guinea and north of New Britain (8,3)
21 Synthetic textile fibre made from regenerated
cellulose, typically from wood pulp or cotton (5)
23 Jacques ___, German-born French composer of works including the 1881 opera The Tales of Hoffmann (9)
24 Smallest of the 32 states of Mexico, bordered by
Puebla, México and Hidalgo (8)
25 Rudimentary inner toe or hallux set too high to
reach the ground, especially on a dog’s leg (7)
27 and 17 Across Titular protagonist of the 1963-67 US TV series The Fugitive, played by David Janssen (7,6)
28 Name given to the Old Testament patriarch Jacob after he wrestled with an angel of God (Genesis 32; 22-32) (6)
32 Any shrub or small tree of the genus Rhus in the cashew family (Anacardiaceae), bearing clusters of hairy red fruit (5)
33 and 15 School, college or university that a person formerly attended: Latin, ‘bountiful mother’ (4,5)