“Doth villainy fill any sinister void?”; Divinity “Fuge”?; “Drop a pair... then party there!”; Nesting duds within duds; A schoolmaster may hate the classroom!; “Take a 5-second power nap... then solve!”; Cloudbursts and Loud Blasts; History & Whodunit mystery: “Gambitten” by the “Chess bug”; Halve a letter in a name, an adjective you’ll have!; Diamonds, both ballpark & sparkling; “If I were a rich man (with a halo) I would march in, but don’t squeeze my chin! (I guess my arm’s ok”)

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Cloudbursts and Loud Blasts

A multisyllabic barrier shields you from small objects falling precipitously from the sky.

Swap the second and second-last letters of that barrier and insert a space to spell the yell that an airborne explosive-weapons-dropper might make, warning those below of a larger much-more-lethal object falling from the sky.

This “explosive-weapons-dropper” might also be described as an “_-____ ______.”

What are this multisyllabic barrier, small objects, weapon-dropper’s yell, large sky-falling object, and other name for the weapon dropper?

Hint: the barrier, yell and large object are anagrams of one another.  

Appetizer Menu

Terrifically Jefferific Riffery:

“Doth villainy fill any sinister void?”; Divinity “Fuge”?; “Drop a pair... then party there!”; “Take a 5-second power nap... then solve!”; A schoolmaster may hate the classroom! Nesting duds within duds;

“Doth villainy fill any sinister void?”

1. 🎥Take a four-letter adjective for something unpleasant. 

Rearrange its letters to get the last name of a movie villain. Take the villain’s full name and drop one letter to get two other evil characters. 

What is the word and who are the characters.

Divinity “Fuge”?

2. 👼Take a term for a place where one might find refuge. 

Drop a letter and rearrange to get someone you might find there. 

“Drop a pair... then party there!”

3. 🗺Take the two-word name of a famous place. 

Drop the three-letter initialism of a college sports organization.  Rearrange the result to get something celebrated at the famous place. Name this place and celebration.

Note: In the accompanying illustration, captions for the images emerge after the initial letter of each word in the city is deleted.

“Take a 5-second power nap... then solve!”

4. 🗓September 25, 2025 marked an unusual event, one that won’t happen again in this century. What was the event, and when will it next occur?

A schoolmaster may hate the classroom!

5. 📚A word and its anagram can be used to fill in the two blanks in the sentence below. 

What are they?

There is nothing a _________ hates more than a _________.

Nesting duds within duds 

6. Insert a three-letter garment into a five-letter garment to get a homophone for something a parent dressing a two-year-old needs. Name these two garments and what this parent needs.

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“Compeerative” Hors D’Oeuvre:

Halve a letter in a name & an adjective you’ll have!

Chop a letter in a fictional character’s surname in half to form two new letters. 

Replace another letter with a letter that rhymes with it. 

The result is an adjective that describes this
character, compared to his peers.

What are this surname and adjective?

Bobby Fischer-King “Chess Nuts Toasting...”Slice:

History & Whodunit mystery: “Gambitten” by the “Chess bug”

Anagram the combined letters of four chess pieces. 

You will spell four words that describe “A Brief History of Time,” and where it may have been
published. 

What are these four chess pieces?

What two words describe “A Brief History of Time”?

What two words denote where it may have been published?

Riffing Off Shortz Squeeze-Playfully Entrees:

“If I were a rich man (with a halo) I would march in, but don’t squeeze my chin! (I guess my arm’s ok”)

Will Shortz’s November 1st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:

Think of a three-letter par
t of the human body. Insert it into a four-letter part of the body to get a brand name you might see at the supermarket. What names are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a ten-letter puzzlemaster who is a conundrum-creating ____. For him, designing an ingeniously wordplayful puzzle is as effortless as taking a leisurely _____ in the park!

Fill in the first blank with letters #1, #6, #2 & #10.

Fill in the second blank with letters #5, #9, #8, #7, #4 & #3.

What words belong in the two blanks?

Who is this Puzzlemaster?

(Note: Entrees #2-through-#7 are the fruits of the riffmaking genius of our friend Nodd.)

ENTREE #2

Think of two four-letter body parts (one is plural). 

Change an A to a C. Rearrange to spell a brand name you might see in the candy section of the supermarket. 

What are the body parts and the brand name?

ENTREE #3

Think of a four-letter body part and a five-letter part of some people’s bodies. Change an E to an A. Rearrange to spell a two-word brand name you might see in the cereal aisle at the supermarket. What are the body parts and the brand name?

ENTREE #4

Think of two body parts of four letters each. Delete one letter and rearrange to spell a brand name you might see in the coffee and tea section of the supermarket. 

What are the body parts and the brand name?

ENTREE #5

Think of a three-letter body part and something in four letters you might get on parts of your body. 

Change an A to an H. Rearrange to spell a brand name you might see in the candy section of the supermarket. 

What are the body part, what you might get, and the brand name?

ENTREE #6

Think of body parts in three and four letters (one body part is plural). 

Change a G to an A. Rearrange to spell a two-word brand name you might see in the baked goods section of the supermarket. 

What are the body parts and the brand name?

ENTREE #7

Think of a famous unkept promise by a successful presidential candidate, in six words. The second and third words refer to certain of his body parts. Rearrange their letters to get a brand name you might see in the refrigerated beverage section of the supermarket. What are the promise and the brand?

(Note: Entrees #8 & #9 were composed by our gifted and talented friend Plantsmith.)

ENTREE #8

Put a three-letter body part inside a four-letter body part.

Drop the last letter to get a brand name of
something you might see at Best Buy.

Name this body part and brand name.

ENTREE #9

Take a five-letter body part and replace the last letter with a vacation destination. 

“Pluralize” the result to get a cereal.

What are this cereal and destination?

Dessert Menu

Society Page Dessert:

Diamonds... both ballpark & sparkling 

Former major league star Rick may marry a famous movie star whose surname is a synonym of “fuse”... Indeed, such nuptials are still possible! 

Were this slim possibility to become a full-blown reality, a headline in newspapers’
society pages might read like an entry in an appointment booklet consisting of words of 6, 7 & 3 letters.

Name these stars and possible society-page headline.

Hint: The third word in the headline is the surname of these star-crossed stars... but only after you apply to it what what sounds like a synonym of Christmas.

Every Thursday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!

Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)

Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We serve up at least one piping fresh puzzle every Thursday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you.

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of The Week:

Leap Year, Living Tunesmith, Dead Poet

Write the first and last names of a living lyricist and a dead poet. Transpose the words in the poet’s name.

The last eight letters of each result are identical. Remove them.

Lowercase what remains of the lyricist’s name. Capitalize what remains of the poet’s name.
The capital letters divided by the lowercase letter equal the number of days in a leap year, plus two.

Name this lyricist and poet.

After the removal of the identical letters, what remains of the lyricist’s name and of the poet’s name?

Appetizer Menu

Quintuply Skydiversionary Appetizer:

Bumps in the night; tycoons and typhoons; “IgNobel” Poster? Low-class clods and high-class creatures; “Hi Ho Silverheels?”

Bumps in the night

1. 👢🚪Spoonerize a two-word phrase indicating hearing an ominous kicking on your front door late at night to get another phrase describing what was being delivered. 

What are these two phrases?

Tycoons and typhoons

2. 💵 🌪 What do tycoons and typhoons have in common?

Note: It is true that both “tycoons” and “typhoons” begin with a “ty” and end with an
“oons”... But the answer we seek has to do with the meanings of the two words, not their spellings.

“IgNobel” Poster?

3. 🏆Spoonerize the name of a Nobel Prize winning playwright to phonetically describe a comment poster on a puzzle blog (like Blaine’s Blog or Puzzleria!) whose hints may be TMI (Too Much Information). 

Name the playwright and the description of the comment poster.

Low-class clods & high-class creatures

4.🐎Think of a word that describes humans considered to be of lower social class. 

Now insert the letter H to describe an animal considered to be of an aristocratic class. What are these humans and these animals?

“Hi Ho Silverheels!”

5. 🏇 When the Lone Ranger informed Tonto he had cancer and was enduring treatments
that were causing him much pain, what did Tonto ask? 

MENU

Model-A Model-T Model-O... Hors d’Oeuvre:

Words on a table, solve if you’re able

Double a letter in a word seen on an oft-wall-hung timetable. (This timetable is an anagram of a hyphenated description of models that sometimes appear on it).

Rearrange the letters (including the doubled-
one) in the word found on the timetable to spell an adjective and noun that describe a creature.

What are the timetable and the description of models that may appear on it?

What is the word seen on that timetable?

What are the adjective and noun that describe the creature?

Sandbars & Candy Bars Slice:

Deserts deserted, delicious desserts!

Name a dessert and desert, both with ten letters.

Anagram the dessert to spell two articles of clothing.

Anagram the desert to spell two words
associated with eyes.

What are this dessert, desert, clothing articles and eye-related words?

Hints: The two articles of clothing are worn at opposite ends of the body. One word associated with eyes is a part of an eye, the other is plural and peripheral to the eyes. 

Riffing Off Shortz Entrees:

Blue Bay Backers?

Will Shortz’s October 25th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:

The commercial name “iPhone” starts with a
lowercase “i” and has a capital “P” inside it. Think of two well-known companies whose logos also start with lowercase letters and each contain a capital “B” somewhere inside.

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzlemasterful conundrum-creating _______ and ____ who provides us with a week’s _____ of cryptic challenges and enjoyment every Sunday... 

... a puzzlemaker ___ ____ ___ and wisdom ____ us weekly by posing ____ of puzzles  that begin with a “What,” “Why,” “Where,” “When” “___” or “___...”

... puzzles filled with challenging _______,
“mysterious ______” and skillfully-compiled fill-in-the-word lists; puzzles involving square, cube or etymological _____; puzzles consisting of missing-word _____...

... all courtesy of this wordsmith with Hoosier _____ who _____ a weekly nationally radio broadcast!

Bonus Timely Holiday Addendum:

Nestled deep within the All Hallows Eve Wilderness are eerie heard-by-ears, albeit unseen, ___ _____ and _____ hidden deep within forest _______.

Name the 19 different missing words in the above text, including the Bonus Addendum. (One of these 19 words “appears” twice.)

These 19 words contain only 9 different letters of our 26-letter alphabet.

Use these 9 different letters, one of them twice, to spell the name of a puzzle-maker.

Name these 20 missing words: 

five 3-letter words; four 4-letter words; seven 5-letter words; one 6-letter word; three 7-letter words 

Who is the puzzle-maker?

(Note: Entrees #2 through #7 are compostitions by Nodd, creator of “Nodd ready for prime time” on Puzzleria!)

ENTREE #2

The surname of a well-known past politician begins with a lowercase letter but also has a
capital letter somewhere in it. 

You can rearrange the letters in the surname to spell a food and a place to get food. (The place doesn’t usually offer this food.) Name the politician, the food, and the place.

ENTREE #3

Name a well-known entertainment company with an internal capital letter. Rearrange the letters to spell a two-word phrase describing
something a company may have if it fails to treat its employees well. 

What are the company and the phrase?

ENTREE #4

A famous former football player and a famous current basketball player have first names that
start with the same two letters and contain internal capital letters. (The footballer’s last name also has an internal capital.) Remove the first letter of one of their first names. Then rearrange seven letters of their combined first names to name a former GM car model. You will be left with none. 

Who are the players and what’s the car model?

ENTREE #5

The first name of a famous actor has an internal capital letter. The last name of another famous actor has the same internal capital. The first actor’s first name spelled backward is the last name of a famous composer. The second actor’s last name anagrams to a sticker you are likely to see around this time. 

Who are the actors and the composer, and what is the sticker?

ENTREE #6

Take a brand name with an internal capital letter. Change the first letter to an ampersand
and add an apostrophe. Rearrange all to get three brand names – a snack, a telecom company, and a past GM car model. 

What are the four brands?

ENTREE #7

A global biopharmaceutical company has two internal capitals in its name. 

A major focus of the company is the development of therapies using a chemical compound known by an abbreviation that consists of one lower case letter and the rest uppercase letters. What are the company and the compound? 

(Hint: If you change the first letter of the company name to a different letter, you can rearrange the letters to spell the last name of a former dictator supported by the U.S.)

ENTREE #8

Name a famous current American singer. 

Replace the last name with a colloquial term for a person from the place where this singer was born and raised. Say the result out loud. Phonetically, you’ll get a form of singing the singer doesn’t usually do. 

Who is this singer?

What is the colloquial term?

What is the form of singing?

Dessert Menu

Sweetly Sorrowful Dessert:

“Departure splits the pleasantry”

Rearrange the letters in a word of departure to spell what the “heavenly hopeful” strive to do. Remove a pair identical letters from a second word of departure. Rearrange the result to spell the name of either a European city or in an East-of-the-Mississippi U.S. city.

What are these two words of departure?

What do the “heavenly hopeful” strive to do?

What is the name of these two cities?

Every Thursday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!

Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)

Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Thursday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you.

“Beachcombing... to a theater near you!”; “Stream of the U-Hose”; “Transport, Pets, Petrochemicals” “Pols & lops & other slop” Living in the “Digital Era”; An Idlewild Hue?; Parson-to-person counseling; Flowing, Growing, Glowing Indigo & Goldenrod; Trainer, train & pioneer; Coffee, Tea and Symphony!; “Meditation, Hail Mary’s may fail you no matter what may ail you)!”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Flowing, Growing, Glowing Goldenrod & Indigo

Earth’s attraction allows mighty rivers to flow,

A confluence inspiring bright flowers to grow...

One murmurs, one’s mute, still both glisten and glow

’Neath God’s rainbow of goldenrod, red, indigo...

In the quatrain above, “Glisten” & “glow” are one pair of synonyms with different letter-counts.

Name a second pair of synonyms in the quatrain that have different letter-counts. 

Appetizer Menu

A Half-Dozen “Eggs-ercizing-Your-Cranium” Appetizers:

“Beachcombing... to a theater near you!”; “Stream of the U-Hose”; “Transport, Pets, Petrochemicals” “Pols & lops & other slop” Living in the “Digital Era”; An Idlewild Hue?

Living in the “Digital Era”

1.🤞Combine a synonym for “era” (3 letters) with a synonym for “digit” (6 letters). Rearrange the combination to find the last name of a 1970s One-Hit Wonder. He had several records out but only one was a monster hit. Name the two synonyms, the artist and the hit song.

An Idlewild Hue?

2. 🎜🎝A well-known song is associated with a governmental organization, a destination and a
color. Name all three: the organization, the destination and the color. The destination is not an island.

“Beachcombing... to a theater near you!”

3.📺Name a kind of play. Then name a memorable TV character (in 6 letters) from last century. 

What relationship do they have?

“Stream of the U-Hose”

4. 🎥The same major character appears in various movies – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), Guarding Tess (1994), and Contact (1997) for example. The movies have no relation to one another and the character isn’t a public figure or celebrity. Who is it?

“Transport? Pets? "Petrochemicals?”

5. 🚙🦮🐈🐄🐘 Think of a common means of transport. Append the name of some common four-legged animals. Rearrange all
and discover a large, popular company (9 letters). Name the transport, the animals, and the company.

“Pols & lops & other slop”

6. 🜡State the last name of a well-known political figure. 

Rearrange to discover a well-known brand name. 

Rearrange again to
discover the name of a well-known captain. What are these names?

MENU

Spiritual Direction Hors d’Oeuvre:

Parson-to-person counseling...

(and a parable!) 

Members of a congregation often visit their parson at her office desk and ask that she respond to their spiritual questions. 

But, just as Jesus did, the parson would always begin with a parable:

A hiker on a forest path spotted serpents coiled in the shade. He grabbed a stick and began to poke one. This “slitherer” retreated beneath the brush, but the hiker persisted, poking even harder yet. Cornered and ornery, the snake lashed out, nearly biting the hand that harrowed him! The hiker dropped the stick and skedaddled, leaving him to ponder the revelation: “Tranquility often depends on leaving well enough alone.”

Take the combined letters of synonyms of “serpents” and “poke.” Rearrange them to spell each one of two duos of non-consecutive words that appear in the first sentence in this puzzle. 

What are these two synonyms and four “fruits of anagrammation?”

 Hawk-Tracker Slice:

Trainer, train & pioneer

Anagram the letters of one who trains hawks and a lone train locomotive to name a health-reform pioneer.

Name this trainer, train locomotive and pioneer.

Note: The lone train locomotive is sometimes called a “_ _ _ _  train locomotive.”) 

Riffing Off Shortz And Pokras Entrees:

Coffee, Tea and Symphony!

Will Shortz’s September 1st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Ned Pokras of Brattleboro, Vermont, reads:

Take the last name of a well-known figure in music (11 letters). Drop the 9th and 10th letters. Say the result out loud. Phonetically, it will sound like two hot beverages, one after the other. Who is the figure in music, and what are the beverages?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz and Pokras puzzles read:

ENTREE #1:

Jake is alarmed to discover a snake slithering among the tomato vines in his vegetable garden. So, he tiptoes through the tulip-red tomatoes and uses his bamboo cane, as a _____ ____.

Rearrange those nine missing letters to spell the name of a puzzle-maker.

(Note: Entrees #2 through #7 were created and contributed by our good friend Nodd, whose “Nodd ready for prime time” riff-package is featured regularly on Puzzleria!)  

ENTREE #2

Name a well-known figure in rock music with alliterative first and last names. (7 and 6 letters). 

The last name, minus the final letter, is a word for something used to make some beverages.

Letters 1-4 and 6 of the first name can be arranged to spell a word for something you do when making another kind of beverage. 

Who is this figure and what are the two words?

ENTREE #3

Take the last name of a (fairly) well-known Italian classical composer (8 letters). 

Three consecutive letters are the second word in a two-word term for an illicit drinking establishment. The rest of the letters anagram to a past soft drink brand. 

Who is the composer and what are the two-word term and brand?

ENTREE #4

Take the last names of two well-known figures in folk-rock and popular music with the same first names (5 and 4 letters). 

Replace one letter with the letter that is two places earlier in the alphabet. Then rearrange all nine letters to name two brand-name beverages. (One is a kind of coffee, the other a kind of chocolate drink.) 

Who are the figures and what are the beverages?

ENTREE #5

Take the first and last names of a well-known English classical composer (6 and 5 letters). The last name anagrams to a kind of
beverage. 

Change the last letter of the first name to an S, rearrange, and add an apostrophe to name a beverage brand. Who is the composer and what are the beverage and the brand?  

ENTREE #6

Name two well-known figures in popular music, one male (3 and 5 letters) and one female (4 and 7 letters). 

The male’s first name, followed by the female’s last name, is a beverage. The female’s first name is historically paired with a word for another beverage. 

Who are the figures and what are the beverages?

ENTREE #7

Name a country singer-songwriter of the past (3 and 6 letters). 

Rearrange to spell an adjective describing some beverages and something often used to flavor beverages. 

Who is the singer-songwriter, and what are the adjective and the flavoring?

ENTREE #8

Take the surnames of a cartoonist and an actor. The result sounds like a hot beverage. 

Who are this cartoonist and actor? 

What is the beverage?

Hint: The cartoonist and actor share the same first name.

Dessert Menu

Nothing Transcends Dental Medication Dessert:

“Meditation, Hail Mary’s may fail you no matter what may ail you)!”

Whenever I get a toothache that just won’t quit, first I pray. But then,  _   _ _ _ _    _ _ _    _ _ _ _ _ _  and call my dentist.

(Alas, performing the words in the blanks will only aggravate the pain and suffering! Calling
the dentist, of course, is the prudent course of action.) 

Rearrange those fourteen missing letters to spell three words associated with prayer (which may not be such a bad idea after all).

What are the missing words in the blanks?

What are the three words associated with prayer?

Every Thursday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!

Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)

Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Thursday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you.