Master today's NYT crossword with our expert hint system. We provide synonyms, antonyms, and strategic clues to help you solve without spoiling the fun. Perfect for crossword lover who want that satisfying "aha!" moment.
Today is Puzzle Difficulty: Challenging
💡 Pro Tip: Start with the fill-in-the-blank clues - they're usually the easiest entry points!
🔍 Across Clues - Strategic Hints (33 clues)
🧩 1A: "1. Pop singer Rexha"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BEBE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 2A: "5. Playful in tone"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a curved shape in the vertical plane that spans an opening
- Similar words include: pixilated, mischievous, puckish
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ARCH
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 3A: "9. Group that got Sweden its first Eurovision win"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ABBA
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🧩 4A: "13. Sautéing option with a high smoke point"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AVOCADOOIL
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 5A: "16. Home, in slang"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that baby bed with high sides made of slats
- Similar words include: trot, pony, cribbage
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CRIB
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 6A: "17. Poisonous plant rumored to have killed the emperor Augustus"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that perennial eurasian herb with reddish bell-shaped flowers and shining black berries; extensively grown in united states; roots and leaves yield atropine
- Similar words include: belladonna plant, Atropa belladonna, deadly nightshade
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BELLADONNA
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 7A: "18. Word with hot or double"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the income or profit arising from such transactions as the sale of land or other property
- Similar words include: involve, require, call for
- Opposite of: give, abstain
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: TAKE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 8A: "19. Starting to move"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that on the move
- Similar words include: about, up
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ASTIR
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 9A: "20. What one reads, watches and listens to, collectively"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: MEDIADIET
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 10A: "22. Dictionaries have many of these: Abbr."
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: PGS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 11A: "24. Underappreciated"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that not famous or acclaimed
- Similar words include: obscure, unappreciated, unknown
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: UNSUNG
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 12A: "25. Lots and lots"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a united states dry measure equal to 4 pecks or 2152.42 cubic inches
- Similar words include: fix, mend, furbish up
- Opposite of: break
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BUSHELS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 13A: "29. Enough"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that more than enough in size or scope or capacity
- Similar words include: plenteous, sizable, rich
- Opposite of: meager
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AMPLE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 14A: "31. Squash, e.g."
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a contest with rules to determine a winner
- Similar words include: punt, halt, bet on
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: GAME
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 15A: "32. Period coinciding with the growth of the internet"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: DOTCOMBOOM
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🧩 16A: "35. Chicken ___ king"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a flat wing-shaped process or winglike part of an organism
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ALA
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 17A: "36. When you're in it, you're in hot water"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: JACUZZI
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🧩 18A: "37. Sch. that's home to the Mountaineers"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: WVU
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🧩 19A: "38. Beast of burden"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: PACKANIMAL
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 20A: "40. Peeps at"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the seat within a bishop's diocese where his cathedral is located
- Similar words include: take care, understand, realize
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SEES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 21A: "41. "Come in!""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that to come or go into
- Similar words include: go into, get in, participate
- Opposite of: exit, drop out
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ENTER
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 22A: "42. Leans toward"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that like better; value more highly
- Similar words include: prefer, opt, choose
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: PREFERS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 23A: "44. Alternative to a bow"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that bending the knees; a gesture of respect made by women
- Similar words include: curtsey, bob
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CURTSY
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 24A: "47. Uppermost limit"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that street names for gamma hydroxybutyrate
- Similar words include: liquid ecstasy, easy lay, grievous bodily harm
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: MAX
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 25A: "48. Has only the best intentions"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: MEANSWELL
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 26A: "51. Feature of many a handbag"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a fastener (as a buckle or hook) that is used to hold two things together
- Similar words include: clench, clutches, buckle
- Opposite of: unclasp, unbuckle
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CLASP
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 27A: "55. Running, but not moving"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the state of an engine or other mechanism that is idling
- Similar words include: jobless, tick over, unwarranted
- Opposite of: work, run
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: IDLE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 28A: "56. Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea or Taiwan, to an economist"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ASIANTIGER
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 29A: "58. Eye of the storm"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a pause during which things are calm or activities are diminished
- Similar words include: calm, tranquilize, tranquillise
- Opposite of: agitate
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LULL
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 30A: "59. Plays dice with God, so to speak"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: TEMPTSFATE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 31A: "60. Things on rings"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that metal device shaped in such a way that when it is inserted into the appropriate lock the lock's mechanism can be rotated
- Similar words include: name, distinguish, Florida key
- Opposite of: atonality
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: KEYS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 32A: "61. Casual hangout"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SESH
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 33A: "62. Composer Satie"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ERIK
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🔍 Down Clues - Strategic Hints (37 clues)
🧩 1D: "1. Rum-soaked cake"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a small cake leavened with yeast
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BABA
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 2D: "2. Times to look forward"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that (old testament) adam's wife in judeo-christian mythology: the first woman and mother of the human race; god created eve from adam's rib and placed adam and eve in the garden of eden
- Similar words include: even, eve, Eve
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: EVES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 3D: "3. Leave quickly"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a discharge of lightning accompanied by thunder
- Similar words include: deadbolt, thunderbolt, gobble
- Opposite of: unbolt
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BOLT
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 4D: "4. Overshadow"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that one celestial body obscures another
- Similar words include: overshadow, occult, dominate
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ECLIPSE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 5D: "5. Button next to a suggested contact, maybe"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a condition (mostly in boys) characterized by behavioral and learning disorders
- Similar words include: ADHD, tally, summate
- Opposite of: take away, subtract
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ADD
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 6D: "6. Quarters"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that an area within a building enclosed by walls and floor and ceiling
- Similar words include: way, elbow room, board
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ROOM
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 7D: "7. Possible indicator of construction ahead"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that any cone-shaped artifact
- Similar words include: strobile, cone cell, strobilus
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CONE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 8D: "8. Rishi Sunak was the first one to become a British prime minister"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a native or inhabitant of hindustan or india
- Similar words include: Hindoo, Hindi, Hindustani
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: HINDU
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 9D: "9. Play the fool"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ACTDUMB
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 10D: "10. Smarts"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that mental ability
- Similar words include: brain, wit, mental capacity
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BRAINPOWER
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 11D: "11. They separate hands and handlebars"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BIKEGLOVES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 12D: "12. Give some immoral support, perhaps?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that assist or encourage, usually in some wrongdoing
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ABET
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 13D: "14. "This is sooo frustrating!""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AARGH
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 14D: "15. Sprawled out, say"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that be located or situated somewhere; occupy a certain position
- Similar words include: consist, lie down, rest
- Opposite of: arise, stand
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LAIN
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 15D: "21. "Same here!""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ASAMI
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 16D: "23. Street racer, usually"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a car that is closed and that has front and rear seats and two or four doors
- Similar words include: sedan chair, saloon
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SEDAN
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 17D: "25. Billing line"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BALANCEDUE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 18D: "26. "Well, as it happens …""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: UMACTUALLY
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 19D: "27. Sites of mutations on chromosomes"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the scene of any event or action (especially the place of a meeting)
- Similar words include: locale, venue, locus
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LOCI
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 20D: "28. Flummox"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the base part of a tree that remains standing after the tree has been felled
- Similar words include: podium, mix up, stomp
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: STUMP
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 21D: "30. Denizens of the Great Victoria Desert"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that any of various systems of units for measuring electricity and magnetism
- Similar words include: Emu novaehollandiae, emu, Dromaius novaehollandiae
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: EMUS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 22D: "31. Go like :O"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that an expression of openmouthed astonishment
- Similar words include: goggle, gawk, yaw
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: GAPE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 23D: "33. Government policy bigwig"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a male monarch or emperor (especially of russia prior to 1917)
- Similar words include: tzar, tsar
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CZAR
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 24D: "34. ___ Türeci, physician/scientist who co-founded BioNTech"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: OZLEM
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 25D: "36. Lawn recreation with a portmanteau name"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: JARTS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 26D: "39. Germs of ideas"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the inner and usually edible part of a seed or grain or nut or fruit stone
- Similar words include: heart and soul, centre, nub
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: KERNELS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 27D: "40. Possible topic for a couples therapist"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SEXLIFE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 28D: "43. "Get your ___ first and then you can distort them as much as you please": Mark Twain"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a piece of information about circumstances that exist or events that have occurred
- Similar words include: fact
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: FACTS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 29D: "45. Pop flies?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a sharp blow
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SWAT
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 30D: "46. Acceptances"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that an affirmative
- Similar words include: yes
- Opposite of: no
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: YESES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 31D: "48. Exploit over time"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a white nutritious liquid secreted by mammals and used as food by human beings
- Similar words include: Milk River
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: MILK
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 32D: "49. Common guacamole ingredient"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a caustic substance produced by heating limestone
- Similar words include: unslaked lime, calcium hydroxide, fluxing lime
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LIME
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 33D: "50. Goes around, in a way"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the upper side of the thighs of a seated person
- Similar words include: circle, lap covering, circuit
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LAPS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 34D: "52. Vegan alternative to gelatin"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that any culture medium that uses agar as the gelling agent
- Similar words include: nutrient agar, agar-agar
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AGAR
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 35D: "53. ___ Institute, home to the Carl Sagan Center"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SETI
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 36D: "54. Avenue for early learning, in brief"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: PREK
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 37D: "57. Unspecified term in a sequence"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that last or greatest in an indefinitely large series
- Similar words include: n-th
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: NTH
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧠 Expert Solving Strategies
🎯 Start Smart
Begin with fill-in-the-blank clues and short 3-4 letter words. These are your foundation.
❓ Decode the Clues
Question marks indicate wordplay or puns. "Maybe" suggests multiple interpretations.
🔤 Use Cross-References
Let intersecting letters guide you. One correct answer unlocks several others.
📚 Build Vocabulary
Common crossword words repeat. Learning them speeds up future solving.
📊 Today's Puzzle Stats
33 Across Clues
37 Down Clues
70 Total Clues
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