So now it’s personal! 
It was one of the main streets in the town where I grew up, and there’s one a couple miles from where I live now.
I don’t have a clue what the tree is
Since the puzzle is a day old, and the word is not in it, and it isn’t a likely clue to another word in the puzzle… LINDEN.
Huh. I’ve seen the word as a street name but never knew the definition. Had I thought about it I would have assumed it was just a last name like the actor Hal Linden and not that it had an additional meaning.
We have a big one in our front yard, otherwise I might just know it as a common tree in Germany.
On a side note, when its small flowers bloom in the spring, all the bees and wasps find it, and the tree hums.
I just went down a LINDEN wood rabbit hole, looking up Unter den Linden, the boulevard in Berlin, from there looking at the Swedish surnames Lindskog (linden forest), Lindberg (linden mountain) and Lindskold (linden shield), from there to Viking linden shields (the wood is light but strong), then to statues. Many medieval statues are made from linden wood, and I found a website offering new statues of saints, described as linden wood hand carved in Italy.
So WINCH is accepted, but not WINCHING. Does Sam not know what the former means?
I just came here to post that! What the heck??
Gentlemen, as everyone knows, at the New York Times that is a noun, not a verb.
No, seriously, I have no idea. I tried it twice!
I tried it twice too! And I checked, it’s in OED, M-W and Collins.
A quick romp to Genius otherwise, the witch hat badge is cute, but a red faced annoyed badge or a mystified head scratching badge would be more appropriate.
And TWITTING and TWIGGING were disallowed as well, although I suppose someone might consider them Britishisms. But WHINGING was allowed, which is definitely a Brit word.
I tried those Britishisms too.
Anyway I got to QB with WIGHT, which I would have thought too archaic, but TIL that it also means something appropriate for today: spirit, including an evil spirit
Until Game Of Thrones, of course.
Oh, is it in Game Of Thrones? I’ve never watched it, like 52% of people in the “I’ve never done x” poll.
Tolkien used the word too.
Also a monster in D&D
And now that I think about it, Doc Smith used the word too, albeit in a somewhat different meaning than the others.
As did Elmer Fudd.
Yeah, we’ve complained about this for ages. I’ve even emailed. Sam’s blind spots are truly baffling!
OK, so HOYDEN & GIBBET aren’t accepted, but yesterday’s pangram, PETTIFOG, is fine?? SMH yet again.
I only got that one because I remembered it from a past puzzle, and at that time, since I had never heard the word, did a NYT search and it had never appeared in the paper, even during the 2016-2020 era when it could have been used daily, ISTM.
I knew the word from the character in the Wizard of Id comic.