Toughie No. 17 — cryptic crossword

A toughie puzzle: 42 clues on a 15×15 grid. Solve it online — check your answers as you go, ask for a hint, and read how each clue works once it is solved.

Across

1. Brief holiday greetings: job for comedians (9)
6. Cut back on legs (4)
9. Close drone getting identification (5)
11. Ice miners at work look back on old times (9)
12. Hesitate over verse and wear away (5)
14. Meals cooked for the men (5)
15. Warsaw man's job at the front of the grid (4,8)
17. Part of a match, or a modest drink (4)
20. Teen train running wild has to keep people amused (9)
22. Prickly plants encountered in heroic action (5)
23. One empty space to steer clear of (5)
26. Ten hearts shuffled, and that bodes ill (9)
27. Left the pub for a fall in Scotland (4)
28. Dial the score and take what's coming (4,3,5)
31. A charge for a ring in the ocean (5)
33. Gold measure: one in the wagon (5)
34. Freedom fighter, by the sound of it, a silverback (9)
36. Make peace at one (5)
37. Benefit from lode being worked (4)
38. Feast Isis arranged fills the bill (9)

Down

1. Not central to help repair work (10)
2. Phone card seen in this image (3)
3. Crooks, a Greek character and a Red plotted (9)
4. Hold out, worker — be unyielding (9)
5. Turned down at night, but read in the morning (5)
6. Wild pariah swallowing knight is a savage biter (7)
7. Hero concealed by a timid old lady (4)
8. Goes to law over some issues (4)
10. Life story, badly curtailed, gives a brief note (4)
13. Traded in a developed delta (5)
16. Fate of a charged particle: cream for the skin (6)
18. Hundred in fresh cases gives a way in (6)
19. Excellent way to post a letter (5,5)
21. Point where north and west come together! (9)
22. More clays broken up by Highland blades (9)
24. Elvis takes in the view (5)
25. Fashionable apartment with energy to blow up (7)
29. Deep female voice sorted out a lot (4)
30. Boundary bushes lose their head and inch forward (5)
31. Sour — a Conservative identity (4)
32. Spoken openings of Othello, Romeo And Lear (4)
35. Part of the whole island's charm! (3)

More: Toughie cryptic crosswords.

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