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 (35 clues)
🧩 1A: "1. ___ Bradham, inventor of Pepsi"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CALEB
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 2A: "6. Skewer"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a sudden sharp feeling
- Similar words include: prod, pang, thrust
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: STAB
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 3A: "10. Cook in hot water"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a painful sore with a hard core filled with pus
- Similar words include: roil, moil, churn
- Opposite of: freeze
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BOIL
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 4A: "14. Frank account?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a daily written record of (usually personal) experiences and observations
- Similar words include: journal
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: DIARY
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 5A: "15. Father's sister"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the sister of your father or mother; the wife of your uncle
- Similar words include: auntie, aunty
- Opposite of: uncle
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AUNT
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 6A: "16. "Casablanca" heroine"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ILSA
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 7A: "17. Acclaimed 2004 science fiction work by David Mitchell made into a 2012 film"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CLOUDATLAS
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🧩 8A: "19. Excess"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the quality of being so overabundant that prices fall
- Similar words include: overgorge, gourmandize, gormandise
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: GLUT
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 9A: "20. Floor models"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a visual presentation showing how something works
- Similar words include: demonstrate, show, demo
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: DEMOS
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🧩 10A: "21. Floor"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that affect with wonder
- Similar words include: flummox, stupefy, vex
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AMAZE
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🧩 11A: "22. 1959 Broadway drama by Lorraine Hansberry, with "A""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ______________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: RAISININTHESUN
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🧩 12A: "26. Dearest pal"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BESTIE
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🧩 13A: "27. Sounds at a fireworks show"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that express admiration and pleasure by uttering `ooh' or `aah'
- Similar words include: ooh, aah
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: OOHS
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🧩 14A: "28. Remove from a clothesline, say"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: UNPEG
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🧩 15A: "29. Beach blanket?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a loose material consisting of grains of rock or coral
- Similar words include: Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin, sandpaper, George Sand
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SAND
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 16A: "31. Black Friday offering"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a particular instance of selling
- Similar words include: cut-rate sale, sales agreement, sales event
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SALE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 17A: "35. Preceder of Jan."
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the last (12th) month of the year
- Similar words include: declination, celestial latitude, December
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: DEC
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🧩 18A: "36. 2006 romantic fantasy novel by Stephenie Meyer"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: NEWMOON
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🧩 19A: "39. With 43-Across, playful marine mammal"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a division of an ocean or a large body of salt water partially enclosed by land
- Similar words include: ocean
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SEA
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🧩 20A: "40. Playful marine mammal"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that fastener consisting of a resinous composition that is plastic when warm; used for sealing documents and parcels and letters
- Similar words include: cachet, stamp, seal off
- Opposite of: unseal
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SEAL
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 21A: "42. Pros who may care for playful marine mammals"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a doctor who practices veterinary medicine
- Similar words include: ex-serviceman, veterinary surgeon, veteran
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: VETS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 22A: "43. See 39-Across"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the fur of an otter
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: OTTER
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 23A: "45. "Ah, gotcha""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ISEE
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🧩 24A: "47. Workers who sometimes carry flashlights"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that irish prelate who deduced from the bible that creation occurred in the year 4004 bc (1581-1656)
- Similar words include: show, usher, Ussher
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: USHERS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 25A: "48. Newbery Medal-winning 1989 novel for children by Lois Lowry"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ______________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: NUMBERTHESTARS
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🧩 26A: "53. Standard option in a popular rideshare app"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: UBERX
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 27A: "54. Warn"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that condition of heightened watchfulness or preparation for action
- Similar words include: alarum, rattling, merry
- Opposite of: unalert
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ALERT
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 28A: "55. Covid-19, in slang"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: RONA
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🧩 29A: "56. Message from a pilot ... or what 17-, 22-, 36- and 48-Across each is?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that writing formed in the sky by smoke released from an airplane
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SKYWRITING
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 30A: "61. Type of word banned in North American competitive Scrabble in 2020"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that (music) a curved line spanning notes that are to be played legato
- Similar words include: smirch, daub, blot
- Opposite of: focus
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SLUR
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 31A: "62. White House staffer"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that an officer who acts as military assistant to a more senior officer
- Similar words include: adjutant, auxiliary, aide-de-camp
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AIDE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 32A: "63. Shower scrubber"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the dried fibrous part of the fruit of a plant of the genus luffa; used as a washing sponge or strainer
- Similar words include: luffa, loofah, loufah sponge
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LOOFA
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 33A: "64. Online crafts shop"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ETSY
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 34A: "65. Equipment in "Top Chef""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that cooking utensil consisting of a wide metal vessel
- Similar words include: genus Pan, cooking pan, Pan
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: PANS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 35A: "66. Spirits"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the immaterial part of a person; the actuating cause of an individual life
- Similar words include: mortal, psyche, soul
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SOULS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🔍 Down Clues - Strategic Hints (41 clues)
🧩 1D: "1. Org. encouraging flu shots"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a federal agency in the department of health and human services; located in atlanta; investigates and diagnoses and tries to control or prevent diseases (especially new and unusual diseases)
- Similar words include: Center for Disease Control and Prevention
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CDC
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 2D: "2. Feel ill"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that aromatic bulb used as seasoning
- Similar words include: garlic, trouble, pain
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AIL
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 3D: "3. Neighbor of a Thai"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a member of a buddhist people inhabiting the area of the mekong river in laos and thailand and speaking the lao language; related to the thais
- Similar words include: Laotian
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LAO
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 4D: "4. Scholarly"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that having or showing profound knowledge
- Similar words include: learned
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ERUDITE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 5D: "5. Intentionally"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BYDESIGN
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 6D: "6. Used, as a chair"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SATON
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🧩 7D: "7. Politician Gabbard"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: TULSI
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 8D: "8. Santa ___ winds"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that mother of the ancient irish gods; sometimes identified with danu
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ANA
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 9D: "9. "Dynamite" K-pop band"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BTS
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🧩 10D: "10. Chaotic situation"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BIGMESS
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🧩 11D: "11. Some cantina cookware"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that leaf or strip from a leaf of the talipot palm used in india for writing paper
- Similar words include: olla, ola
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: OLLAS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 12D: "12. Japanese truck manufacturer"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ISUZU
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🧩 13D: "13. Draw toward dark"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LATEN
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🧩 14D: "18. Female French friend"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AMIE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 15D: "21. Sound at a massage parlor"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AHH
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🧩 16D: "22. Actress Zellweger"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: RENEE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 17D: "23. Pet adoption org."
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ASPCA
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🧩 18D: "24. Taboos"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: NONOS
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🧩 19D: "25. Kind of list"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: TODO
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🧩 20D: "26. Blossoms-to-be"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a partially opened flower
- Similar words include: bud
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BUDS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 21D: "29. "Too ___" (2024 #1 Hozier hit)"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that english phonetician; one of the founders of modern phonetics (1845-1912)
- Similar words include: angelic, gratifying, perfumed
- Opposite of: sour, dry
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SWEET
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 22D: "30. Tsp. or tbsp."
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AMT
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🧩 23D: "32. Daisylike flower"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that any of various chiefly fall-blooming herbs of the genus aster with showy daisylike flowers
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ASTER
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 24D: "33. Ogles"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a facial expression of contempt or scorn; the upper lip curls
- Similar words include: sneer, leer
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LEERS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 25D: "34. Removable Potato Head parts"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the sense organ for hearing and equilibrium
- Similar words include: auricle, pinna, ear
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: EARS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 26D: "37. Happily/after connector"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that at any time
- Similar words include: always, of all time, e'er
- Opposite of: never
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: EVER
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 27D: "38. Flared facial features"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that either one of the two external openings to the nasal cavity in the nose
- Similar words include: anterior naris, nostril
- Pattern: ________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: NOSTRILS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 28D: "41. Spot to find 17-, 22-, 36- and 48-Across"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a room where books are kept
- Similar words include: depository library, subroutine library, program library
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LIBRARY
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 29D: "44. "Your point also""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: THATTOO
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 30D: "46. It sells, in an axiom"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that activities associated with sexual intercourse
- Similar words include: sexual urge, sex activity, arouse
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SEX
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 31D: "47. Computer operator"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a person who makes use of a thing; someone who uses or employs something
- Similar words include: exploiter, substance abuser, drug user
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: USER
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 32D: "48. Sip slowly"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that one skilled in caring for young children or the sick (usually under the supervision of a physician)
- Similar words include: harbour, harbor, breastfeed
- Opposite of: bottlefeed
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: NURSE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 33D: "49. Letter-shaped fastener"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: UBOLT
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 34D: "50. Laminated restaurant items"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a list of dishes available at a restaurant
- Similar words include: bill of fare, carte, fare
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: MENUS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 35D: "51. "Surprise Symphony" composer"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that prolific austrian composer who influenced the classical form of the symphony (1732-1809)
- Similar words include: Franz Joseph Haydn, Joseph Haydn
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: HAYDN
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 36D: "52. Cary of "The Princess Bride""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ELWES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 37D: "56. Deplete"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a watery solution of sugars, salts, and minerals that circulates through the vascular system of a plant
- Similar words include: tire, exhaust, fool
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SAP
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 38D: "57. Sportage maker"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: KIA
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 39D: "58. Collector's item, informally?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that an informal debt instrument; representing `i owe you'
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: IOU
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 40D: "59. Lions' org."
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: NFL
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🧩 41D: "60. Neon or Freon"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the state of matter distinguished from the solid and liquid states by: relatively low density and viscosity; relatively great expansion and contraction with changes in pressure and temperature; the ability to diffuse readily; and the spontaneous tendency to become distributed uniformly throughout any container
- Similar words include: gasoline, flatulence, natural gas
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: GAS
💡 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
35 Across Clues
41 Down Clues
76 Total Clues
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