Title: “Synonyms & Antonym”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a 6-letter word.
Answer: SWITCH
Correct entries: 271 overall, of which 216 were solo solves

Careful with that title! That’s “Synonyms” plural but “Antonym” singular. What could it mean? We had six theme clues and were looking for a 6-letter word, which strongly suggested that one letter would be extracted from each. They were:

21-A: [Minion who doesn’t smile much (4 + 5 ≠ 5)] = SOMBER HENCHMAN
28-A: [What a lousy funeral home employee might do (5 + 4 ≠ 5)] = MISTREAT DEPARTED
49-A: [Pull the gift-wrapping off a British sports car (4 + 3 ≠ 4)] = UNCOVER TRIUMPH
72-A: [Well-known song played without errors (4 + 6 ≠ 3)] = SMOOTH STANDARD
86-A: [Piece of chicken that’s simple to cook (4 + 4 ≠ 4)] = EFFORTLESS TENDER
99-A: [“As for a certain Cabinet department…” (2 + 7 ≠ 3)] = REGARDING LABOR

Step 1: Two words in each entry and the title asks for synonyms, so let’s look for synonyms of those, using the first two parenthetical numbers as lengths:

SOMBER HENCHMAN = DARK HEAVY. Probably not the first one you got, since the definition of “heavy” is a subtle one here. But once you saw the pattern from the others it was easier.
MISTREAT DEPARTED = WRONG LEFT. As in “to wrong someone,” i.e. to treat them poorly or immorally in a situation.
UNCOVER TRIUMPH = FIND WIN
SMOOTH STANDARD = EVEN NORMAL
EFFORTLESS TENDER = EASY SOFT
REGARDING LABOR = ON WORKING

Step 2: We’ve got our Synonyms plural, so now let’s look for our Antonym singular. Key point is to realize (which probably helped you backsolve a couple of them) that the two words in each pair share an antonym of the length given after the not equal to sign (≠). Like so:

DARK and HEAVY are both antonyms of LIGHT
WRONG and LEFT are both antonyms of RIGHT
FIND and WIN are both antonyms of LOSE
EVEN and NORMAL are both antonyms of ODD
EASY and SOFT are both antonyms of HARD
ON and WORKING are both antonyms of OFF

Step 3: Tack a letter on to the front of these to find an entry in the grid:

(S)LIGHT at 68-A
(W)RIGHT at 53-A
(I)LOSE. Inelegant, I know – .10 or .15 ding at Fiend. But whaddya gonna do — got so lucky that a relevant six-letter word could be made from these that I had to consider it dingworthy.
(T)ODD at 108-A
(C)HARD 16-D
(H)OFF at 70-D

Those initial letters spell contest answer SWITCH, fitting since you had to switch from synonymy to antonymy to get the meta.

I received a number of comments about this:

My response:

1) No, e.a. does not receive the puzzles early or test-solve them
2) No, I do not see how it is physically or intellectually possible to solve this meta and enter in 6 minutes
3) Yes, I have checked my house for cameras and my laptop for spyware

This might be the most impressive single solve in MGWCC history, right up there with JanglerNPL’s 90-minute solve of the “Hunt for Food October” catastrophe that only 4 people got right in the entire 4 days. I could not believe my eyes when it appeared on my screen at 12:06.

Toast says:

I think it might go slightly above 308.

Just 271, believe it or not! 308 was the guess of my Consigliere, who, amazingly enough, had predicted the correct # of entries on the nose the past two weeks (422 and 193). So he missed it by 37 this week, which is of course unacceptable. Looking for a new Consigliere, please send a 5,000-word essay describing in painstaking detail why you are the best candidate for the job to crosswordcontest@gmail.com. Thx.

Golem asks:

Are you a good SWITCH or a bad SWITCH?

And finally, SarAndDrew says:

“HATED” this one!!

Antonymy, I hope?

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a two-word school supply.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.