KORY STAMPER, WORD BY WORD — [I]n Springfield, there are a couple dozen people who spend their workweek doing nothing but making dictionaries — ... writing... definitions, thinking deeply about adverbs, and slowly, inexorably going blind. They are lexicographers.
In that unassuming brick building in Springfield, there are a couple dozen people who spend their workweek doing nothing but making dictionaries — sifting the language, categorizing it, describing it, alphabetizing it. They are word nerds who spend the better parts of their lives writing and editing dictionary definitions, thinking deeply about adverbs, and slowly, inexorably going blind. They are lexicographers.
| A. | Artful exercise of power by a monarch | KINGCRAFT |
| B. | With everything in its proper place | ORGANIZED |
| C. | Staffer who might be on a 24-hour shift | RESIDENT |
| D. | Home of Eastern Michigan University | YPSILANTI |
| E. | Job for a watchful acrobat or rock climber | SPOTTING |
| F. | Much of the AM band nowadays (2 wds.) | TALKRADIO |
| G. | Like paper towels | ABSORBENT |
| H. | Go from one job to another and back | MOONLIGHT |
| I. | Unlike Emily Dickinson's poems, initially | PUBLISHED |
| J. | "Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most ___" (Molière) | EXPENSIVE |
| K. | Drink the Brits call "hock" (2 wds.) | RHINEWINE |
| L. | Like the gusty conditions around the Earnshaw house | WUTHERING |
| M. | Setting for the start of "Annie" | ORPHANAGE |
| N. | Like wind and water, but not oil and gas | RENEWABLE |
| O. | Noteworthy export of New Orleans | DIXIELAND |
| P. | Septet in Ursa Major (2 wds.) | BIGDIPPER |
| Q. | Ahi by another name | YELLOWFIN |
| R. | Persuading by guile or flattery | WHEEDLING |
| S. | Keen on hiking, canoeing, camping, etc. | OUTDOORSY |
| T. | Itemized bill, or its settlement | RECKONING |
| U. | Thingamajig | DOOHICKEY |