/r/crossword

Photograph via snooOG

A place for crossword solvers and constructors to share, create, and discuss American (NYT-style) crossword puzzles.

A place for crossword solvers and constructors to share, create, and discuss American (NYT-style) crossword puzzles. For cryptic crosswords, check out r/crosswords.

Spoiler formatting:

Put >! and !< around the spoiler:

There's a >!spoiler in here!<

Links:

  • How To Solve The NYT Crossword - Interactive tutorial covering common patterns in crossword puzzles
  • Puzzle Guide – Guide to and links to some good puzzles
  • Puzzle Solver – Crossword-solving program for Mac or PC (for Ubuntu, sudo apt-get install xword)
  • CrossFire – An excellent crossword creating program with a good free demo version
  • XWordInfo – Information about the NYT puzzle, plus a search function that is incredibly useful for constructing
  • Wordplay – Official NYT crossword blog, aimed to help people improve their solving skills
  • Crossword Fiend – Links to and discussion of a number of good crosswords
  • Rex Parker (SPOILER ALERT) – Solution to and a review of the latest NYT puzzle
  • NYT Submission Guidelines – How to submit and what not to submit to Will Shortz
  • Crossword Discord - Online chat for solving, construction, and all things crossword

/r/crossword

42,286 Subscribers

0

Crossword podcast – Fill Me In #473: The seventh is the last of seven. (Tuesday, December 24, 2024)

Fill Me In is a podcast about crossword puzzles, though there's the other periodic nonsense you'd expect from two puzzle guys bantering for a while. New episodes of Fill Me In come out every Tuesday morning.

This week, Ryan and Brian try to understand holidays in the far north, inter-island travel in the south Pacific, and gamble the entirety of Kealoa on a nearly scripted coin toss.

Want to know more about our show? Visit our wiki! And enjoy new episodes every Tuesday morning.

Apple PodcastsRSS Feedfmi@bemoresmarter.comFacebookTwitterInstagram

0 Comments
2024/12/24
12:00 UTC

12

NYT Tuesday 12/24/2024 Discussion

Spoilers are welcome in here, beware!

How was the puzzle?

View Poll

40 Comments
2024/12/24
02:57 UTC

1

crosswords with symbols

hi all long time stalker of the sub first time poster just out of curiosity, has the nyt crossword ever featured symbols such as @ # $ / : etc in their puzzles? asking cus when you hit the more tab on the nyt games app it gives u a keyboard containing those as well as numbers. i have never encountered in all my puzzle solving days but interested to know if they have ever been featured!! thanks

6 Comments
2024/12/23
21:14 UTC

4

I Need Some Help with the Clues for my Papa's Christmas Present! More Below:

I am making crossword puzzle-type challenge for my papa. It consists of 3 letter words only, and I have the words done (and their location on the grid), but now I need help with the clues. He is very good at these, and so I am going to make the clues for each word as minimal as possible, around 2 or 3 clues per word, with each clue being a single word or phrase. I want to avoid any clues being something like a synonym or direct description, and make it more interesting. Clues could be anything: references, sayings, etc. I figured you guys would be good at this!

Here are the words: cop, pub, big, gun, cat, pie, bed, gag, neo, nil, toe, end, dog, goo, owl, Tea, etc, dig, guy, ops, lay, arc, cog, gay, yes, spy, air, caw, gas, yen, set, yap, raw, wes, sun, net, top, tap, ray, wok, soy, nam, tom, pod, yak, key, yam, mom, mad, yum, keg, yin, mic, mad, mud, dew, mag, gin, gen, NBC, cod, dow

6 Comments
2024/12/23
18:23 UTC

27

Best Crosswords of the Year?

Good tidings to all! Every year for Christmas, I bust out a NYT Crossword (usually a Thursday or Friday edition) at my friend's Christmas Eve brunch, and let the party have a crack at it while the food is being made. It's become a fun festive tradition, and I was wondering if anyone remembers any particularly fun editions from the year that I could use for this year's edition.

It also doesn't even have to be from this year if you have a particular favorite from years past. The rebus pizza was particularly fun but I also don't remember what date that was.

5 Comments
2024/12/23
13:26 UTC

10

NYT Monday 12/23/2024 Discussion

Spoilers are welcome in here, beware!

How was the puzzle?

View Poll

63 Comments
2024/12/22
23:00 UTC

2

Is this a normal response time for the WSJ?

Hi - I submitted a puzzle to the WSJ over 6 months ago, to what I believe is the correct address - wsjpuzzles@mikeshenk.com. Is that still the right way to submit and it normal to take so long? I normally submit to the LAT and NYT so I have no frame of reference. Thx

6 Comments
2024/12/22
13:03 UTC

1

/r/crossword General Discussion Thread - Week of December 22, 2024

A weekly, open discussion about crosswords and word puzzles, or anything else /r/crossword might be interested in this week.

Please refrain from spoilers or use the spoiler format by putting a spoiler between >! and !< like this:

There's a >!spoiler in here!<

1 Comment
2024/12/22
12:00 UTC

17

Practical tips for improving

Hi all! This isn’t entirely crossword specific, but lately I’ve been frustrated with what feels like a plateauing in my ability to improve.

I’ve read several tips in past posts on this subreddit that suggest folks just keep doing puzzles to improve, but lately I’ve been wanting to examine that advice with more scrutiny. What specifically do you think is the “skill” that is developing with more practice? Is it the memorization of crosswordese? Is it an increased recognition of the types of wordplay that repeat in different clues? Is it an increase in trivia knowledge?

For context, the app says today was my 700th puzzle completed. I typically spend more time on a puzzle than I should, maybe out of stubbornness. For today’s Saturday puzzle I spent 2 hours 5 mins and finished maybe half, before revealing. Several answers that I thought were certainly correct and meshing with several crosses were totally wrong ( I was proud of my answer RING to the clue “Pen for a hit” haha)

I don’t know what I could have done differently or what I should have “learned” from the time spent, but I know I can’t keep spending so long without a reasonable understanding of how or if improvement is taking place. Rant over.

35 Comments
2024/12/22
02:59 UTC

20

NYT Sunday 12/22/2024 Discussion

Spoilers are welcome in here, beware!

How was the puzzle?

View Poll

86 Comments
2024/12/21
23:00 UTC

8

Crosswordr New Constructor Contest Results – see the winners here!

Crosswordr’s New Constructor Contest results are out! We were blown away by the amount of energy and creativity on display. A huge thanks to all who participated and to our judging panel! Check out the winners here:

Anyone can share their puzzles on Crosswordr – read how! Watch out for more updates from Crosswordr in 2025 :)

0 Comments
2024/12/21
22:52 UTC

6

Crossword Gift - Feedback Request

Hello!

I am trying to make a NYT crossword as a gift for my girlfriend as a part of a series of puzzles for Christmas. It is my first construction and I'd love some feedback from anyone who feels like giving it a shot!

My Aim:

  • Roughly Tuesday/Wednesday level difficulty
  • "Feels" mostly like a NYT puzzle
  • Is fun!

RELEVANT INFO FOR SOLVING

I'll put it in spoilers just in case people want to attempt without, but there are a few bits of information that would be available to my girlfriend that are probably necessary to solve the puzzle (they only affect the themed clues).

  • !Her name is Brianna!<

  • !Her favourite movie is Bridget Jones Diary!<

  • !Her favourite musical is Book of Mormon!<

There are a number of other clues that are sort of "geared" towards her (drawn from media she enjoys, places she's been, etc.) that may be harder than Wednesday level for some, but I think that's enough rambling.

I'll post the solution in the comments.

https://preview.redd.it/8a56k1dma98e1.png?width=1275&format=png&auto=webp&s=08ff9a2f0e5d6623301dc9e587383cd28e72c7bb

12 Comments
2024/12/21
19:58 UTC

2

Celebrate National Crossword Puzzle Day with your friends on WordGrid.io!

Today is National Crossword Puzzle Day! On this day in 1913, the first crossword puzzle ever created by Arthur Wynne appeared in The New York World, December 21st issue. What better way to celebrate than solving grids with your friends?

I built https://wordgrid.io, a collaborative crossword solving game that lets you team up with friends—or go solo—to solve your favorite puzzles. It's free with no signup required and no ads.

Here’s what you can do on wordgrid.io:

  • play solo or invite your whole crew: multiplayer supports virtually unlimited collaborators
  • fresh puzzles daily: we pull from multiple outlets every night (and are working on increasing our source feeds!)
  • upload your own puzzles: got a PUZ file? load it up and solve with friends
  • offline mode: download some puzzles before a flight or camping trip and solve them later

The game is still in beta and improving often, here are some features on the roadmap:

  • public games
  • friends system + notifications
  • expanding our puzzle library

We’d love for you to check it out and share your feedback—either here or in our discord.

Happy National Crossword Puzzle day, and happy solving!

0 Comments
2024/12/21
18:24 UTC

11

NYT Saturday 12/21/2024 Discussion

Spoilers are welcome in here, beware!

How was the puzzle?

View Poll

112 Comments
2024/12/21
02:57 UTC

7

Maximum possible individual letters in a mini?

I did one of the New York Times' minis a while ago that used a bunch of 'X's as well as a few other uncommon letters and it got me thinking what is the most individual letters that would be possible to include in a (5x5) mini, using all valid words? Obviously 25 would be impossible, but I wonder if anyone could come up with one that uses 20+ letters. I tried to find one both by coding something and just manually setting one but was pretty unsuccessful so I'm asking here.

12 Comments
2024/12/20
20:40 UTC

15

NYT Friday 12/20/2024 Discussion

Spoilers are welcome in here, beware!

How was the puzzle?

View Poll

67 Comments
2024/12/20
02:57 UTC

16

NYT Thursday 12/19/2024 Discussion

Spoilers are welcome in here, beware!

How was the puzzle?

View Poll

93 Comments
2024/12/19
02:57 UTC

8

Crossword Buddy -- alternative clues

Hi puzzlers ! 👋 I noticed when an inexperienced solver goes to search hints for a stubborn clue, the only options are complete or partial word reveals. Sometimes, you just need an alternative clue to get you thinking about it in a different way!

So I made a "Crossword Buddy" website that does that, it's live here:

https://stmorse.github.io/xwbuddy

Let me know what you think. I'm using a large language model (like ChatGPT) to generate the alternative clues in an automated way -- so it occasionally has some clunkers, or breaks crossword etiquette (like it uses quotes or ! wrong). But overall seems to work.

Anyway, wanted to share with this crowd, open to feedback and hope it's useful

https://preview.redd.it/9uai23ovqn7e1.png?width=1246&format=png&auto=webp&s=1add48a2545afb176f7755e7fd2e55ec8514e9fe

4 Comments
2024/12/18
19:23 UTC

0

Prime (for example) one learning by paying attention? (11)

2 Comments
2024/12/18
04:16 UTC

13

NYT Wednesday 12/18/2024 Discussion

Spoilers are welcome in here, beware!

How was the puzzle?

View Poll

91 Comments
2024/12/18
02:57 UTC

2

NYT acrostic

I’m new to the sub so I apologize if this has been discussed before. Do you know of anyone out there that does the acrostic and publishes their thoughts and/or answers? Sometimes I need help with an answer just to get a little further into the puzzle. I remember it being that way a few years ago, someone did it, but it disappeared and I thought I would check here to see if anybody knows anything about it. I’m hoping somebody can help. Thank you!

8 Comments
2024/12/18
02:09 UTC

Back To Top