BIG MONDAY CROSSWORD
ACROSS
1 Personal assistant to a senior officer in the British Army, equivalent to a flag lieutenant in the Royal Navy (4-2-4)
5 Person, especially a theologian, who resolves specific moral dilemmas by the application of general principles (7)
10 French term for a clear fruit brandy made from distilled fruits, typically excluding grapes; literally, ‘water of life’ (3,2,3)
11 Circular blocking manoeuvre in fencing in which the strong point of a person’s blade (forte) strikes an opponent’s weak point (foible) (5)
12 CGS unit of luminance equal to one candela per square centimetre; from Greek, ‘lamp’ (5)
13 Heaviest and one of the longest snakes in the world, native to tropical South America; Eunectes murinus, also known as the sucuri and water kamudi (8)
14 Name shared by eighteen kings of France, the first reigning from 814–40 and the last from 1814–24 (5)
15 Tropical American climbing plant of the gourd family (Cucurbitaceae) cultivated for its pear-shaped cucumber-like fruit; Sechium edule (7)
18 Enzyme in blood plasma that causes the clotting of blood by converting fibrinogen to fibrin (8)
20 Any of the 13 semiaquatic musteline mammals making up the subfamily Lutrinae, especially the Eurasian Lutra lutra (5)
22 Third-largest and most populous of the islands of Hawaii, known as the Gathering Place (4)
23 See 25 Down
24 Edible European flatfish closely related to the turbot; Scophthalmus rhombus (5)
27 Sheath for a bladed weapon such as a sword or bayonet, traditionally suspended from a shoulder belt called a baldric (8)
29 Relaxation of tension or hostility, especially between nations; from French, ‘loosening’ (7)
31 In curling, the 12-foot circle around the central target (button) in which stones must lie in order to count (5)
32 Fourth-longest river system of southern Africa, rising as the Cubango in central Angola and forming part of the national border with Namibia (8)
34 Giuseppe ___, Italian composer of operas including Rigoletto (1851), and La Traviata (1853) (5)
35 Large divided leaf of a flowerless plant such as a fern, attached to the main stem by a stipe (5) 36 Australian city announced as the host of the 2032 Summer Olympics on 10 July 2021 (8)
37 Two-player card game of Mexican origin similar to rummy; from Spanish, ‘with whom?’ (7)
38 Capital of the Yvelines department in northern France, whose palace was the seat of the French kings from 1682 to 1789 (10)
DOWN
1 Port and resort on the Pacific coast of southern Mexico, part of what is informally known as the Mexican Riviera (8)
2 Thermodynamic quantity representing the energy in a process or system unavailable for work, measured in joules per kelvin (7)
3 Ornamental bracket or corbel, often shaped like an S, supporting a wall fixture, bust etc. (7)
4, 29 and 26 Protagonist of the 2000 Ridley Scott film Gladiator, played by Russell Crowe (7,7,8)
6 Genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the mint family (Lamiaceae) to which bugle belongs (5)
7 Russian-born US composer and lyricist whose ‘White Christmas’ was named Best Original Song at the 1943 Oscars (6,6)
8 Nickname of the fictional hero Simon Templar, created by British-Chinese author Leslie Charteris in the 1928 novel Meet the Tiger (3,5)
9 Jamaican crab serving King Triton in the 1989 animated film The Little Mermaid, voiced by Samuel E. Wright (9)
16 Capital and largest city of Madagascar, founded by King Andrianjaka c. 1625 (12)
17 Coral atoll of the Gilbert Islands in the westcentral Pacific Ocean; location of Bairiki, the administrative centre of Kiribati (6)
19 Standard monetary unit of Belarus and Russia, divided into 100 kopecks (6)
21 Fifth-largest city in the Netherlands, known as the City of Light; in North Brabant province on the Dommel River (9)
25 and 23 Across Organic chemical compound better known as vitamin C (8,4)
26 See 4
28 Disaccharide carbohydrate extracted chiefly from sugar cane and sugar beet, broken down in the body and transported to the liver via the portal vein (7)
29 See 4
30 ‘Hope springs ___ in the human breast’ (Alexander Pope An Essay on Man Epistle 1 (1733) (7)
33 Third-largest lake in Africa, forming most of the eastern border of Malawi with Mozambique and Tanzania (5)