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: Medium
💡 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. Dallas baller"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: MAV
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 2A: "4. Doesn't have"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable
- Similar words include: lack, want, deficiency
- Opposite of: have
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LACKS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 3A: "9. What you might add to fruit to make a drink?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a sweetened beverage of diluted fruit juice
- Similar words include: fruit drink
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ADE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 4A: "12. Popular oldies"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CLASSICHITS
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🧩 5A: "14. Sch. whose mascot is Tim the Beaver"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that an engineering university in cambridge
- Similar words include: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: MIT
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🧩 6A: "15. Zugspitze, for one"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that any high mountain
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ALP
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🧩 7A: "16. Put a cork in, say"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: STOPUP
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🧩 8A: "17. Grishnákh or Gothmog in "The Lord of the Rings""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ORC
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 9A: "18. Got ready to post on Insta, say"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: TOOKAPIC
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 10A: "21. Where everyone is at home"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the 3rd planet from the sun; the planet we live on
- Similar words include: land, dry land, terra firma
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: EARTH
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 11A: "23. Word after sand or speed"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a device in which something (usually an animal) can be caught and penned
- Similar words include: lying in wait, hole, entrap
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: TRAP
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 12A: "24. Murkiness"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the phenomenon of not permitting the passage of electromagnetic radiation
- Similar words include: opaqueness
- Opposite of: transparency, clarity
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: OPACITY
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 13A: "27. Beer hall recyclables"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a glass or plastic vessel used for storing drinks or other liquids; typically cylindrical without handles and with a narrow neck that can be plugged or capped
- Similar words include: nursing bottle, feeding bottle, bottleful
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BOTTLES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 14A: "28. Beverage served alongside the treats in this puzzle"
🎯 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!
🧩 15A: "30. Summer hangout locale"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that an excavation that is (usually) filled with water
- Similar words include: pocket billiards, puddle, kitty
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: POOL
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 16A: "32. Man's name that's a woman's name backward"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ARON
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🧩 17A: "34. Hectic home, metaphorically"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the facility where wild animals are housed for exhibition
- Similar words include: menagerie, zoological garden
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ZOO
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🧩 18A: "35. Extra-thick Nabisco treats, hinted at four times in this puzzle"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: DOUBLESTUFOREOS
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🧩 19A: "39. Like poker champion Chris Moneymaker's name"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that (usually followed by `to') naturally disposed toward
- Similar words include: tending, apposite, liable
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: APT
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🧩 20A: "40. Years ago"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that on one occasion
- Similar words include: erst, formerly, erstwhile
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ONCE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 21A: "41. Gamble"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a source of danger; a possibility of incurring loss or misfortune
- Similar words include: adventure, run a risk, put on the line
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: RISK
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 22A: "42. Bunny with a Brooklyn accent"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that general term for any insect or similar creeping or crawling invertebrate
- Similar words include: glitch, microbe, badger
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BUGS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 23A: "44. Empty spaces"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the absence of matter
- Similar words include: vacuum, vacuum-clean, vacuum cleaner
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: VACUUMS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 24A: "45. In on"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: PRIVYTO
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🧩 25A: "47. Monomaniacal sea captain of literature"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that according to the old testament he was a pagan king of israel and husband of jezebel (9th century bc)
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AHAB
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 26A: "50. Scrumptious camp treat"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SMORE
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🧩 27A: "51. 15 to 29, for "American Idol""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AGELIMIT
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🧩 28A: "55. Cut down"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that make or shape as with an axe
- Similar words include: hew out
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: HEW
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 29A: "56. Badly beaten"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that send documents or materials to appropriate destinations
- Similar words include: rootle, root, expel
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ROUTED
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 30A: "59. Tech ___ (stereotypical Silicon Valley sort)"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BRO
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🧩 31A: "60. Insect that "farms" aphids for their honeydew"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that social insect living in organized colonies; characteristically the males and fertile queen have wings during breeding season; wingless sterile females are the workers
- Similar words include: emmet, pismire
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ANT
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🧩 32A: "61. Consequence"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that any result that follows its cause after an interval
- Pattern: ___________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AFTEREFFECT
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🧩 33A: "62. "Really?""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: HUH
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🧩 34A: "63. Entered, as data"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: FEDIN
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 35A: "64. Sigma preceder"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the 17th letter of the greek alphabet
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: RHO
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🔍 Down Clues - Strategic Hints (35 clues)
🧩 1D: "1. Exam for a prospective osteopath"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: MCAT
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 2D: "2. Ration out"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that allow to have
- Similar words include: accord, dish out, lot
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ALLOT
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 3D: "3. Trail left by a jet"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a visible suspension in the air of particles of some substance
- Similar words include: evaporation, vapour, vaporization
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: VAPOR
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 4D: "4. Sigmatism"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a speech defect that involves pronouncing `s' like voiceless `th' and `z' like voiced `th'
- Similar words include: list-processing language
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LISP
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 5D: "5. When Elphaba and Glinda sing "Defying Gravity" in Broadway's "Wicked""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ACTI
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 6D: "6. Like some cookies or ice cream treats"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CHOCOLATECOATED
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 7D: "7. Money in Laos"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the basic unit of money in laos
- Similar words include: catch some Z's, slumber, upstart
- Opposite of: wake
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: KIP
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 8D: "8. R-V hookup?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: STU
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 9D: "9. Writes off over time"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that liquidate gradually
- Similar words include: amortize, amortise
- Pattern: _________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AMORTIZES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 10D: "10. Stink eye"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: DIRTYLOOK
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🧩 11D: "11. Engrave"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that make an etching of
- Similar words include: engrave
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ETCH
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 12D: "13. Design bit"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a detailed description of design criteria for a piece of work
- Similar words include: specification
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SPEC
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 13D: "19. Shish ___"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables
- Similar words include: shish kebab, kebab
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: KABOB
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 14D: "20. God rejected by Daphne in myth"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that (greek mythology) greek god of light; god of prophecy and poetry and music and healing; son of zeus and leto; twin brother of artemis
- Similar words include: Phoebus, Phoebus Apollo
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: APOLLO
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 15D: "22. Object"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that an anticipated outcome that is intended or that guides your planned actions
- Similar words include: get, objective, take aim
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AIM
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 16D: "25. Land of llamas and Llosa"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a republic in western south america; achieved independence from spain in 1821; was the heart of the inca empire from the 12th to 16th centuries
- Similar words include: Republic of Peru
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: PERU
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 17D: "26. Since"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ASOF
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 18D: "29. Bout stoppers, in brief"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that (in india) a unit of length having different values in different localities
- Similar words include: coss, knockout, KO
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: KOS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 19D: "30. It might appear to give you options"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: POPUPMENU
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 20D: "31. Supplementary result"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a natural consequence of development
- Similar words include: offshoot, appendage, branch
- Pattern: _________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: OUTGROWTH
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 21D: "33. Like a body temperature of around 98.6°F"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that something regarded as a normative example
- Similar words include: convention, rule, formula
- Opposite of: abnormal, paranormal
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: NORMAL
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 22D: "35. Gently apply"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a light touch or stroke
- Similar words include: splash, swob, pat
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: DAB
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 23D: "36. Schadenfreude source"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a feeling of grudging admiration and desire to have something that is possessed by another
- Similar words include: enviousness, begrudge, invidia
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ENVY
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 24D: "37. Riff like Ella Fitzgerald"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that singing jazz; the singer substitutes nonsense syllables for the words of the song and tries to sound like a musical instrument
- Similar words include: run away, scat singing, head for the hills
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SCAT
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 25D: "38. ___ Sunak, former British P.M."
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: RISHI
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 26D: "43. Word shouted before and after "yes""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that term of address for a man
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SIR
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 27D: "46. Fashion icon Wang"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: VERA
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 28D: "48. Substance in which many insects have been fossilized"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a deep yellow color
- Similar words include: yellow-brown, brownish-yellow, gold
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AMBER
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 29D: "49. Tree with papery bark"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that hard close-grained wood of any of various birch trees; used especially in furniture and interior finishes and plywood
- Similar words include: birchen, birch tree, birch rod
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BIRCH
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 30D: "50. Onetime Persian title"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that title for the former hereditary monarch of iran
- Similar words include: Shah of Iran
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SHAH
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 31D: "52. ___ Allen, jazz pianist"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: GERI
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 32D: "53. Place in both the Quran and the Bible"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that any place of complete bliss and delight and peace
- Similar words include: paradise, Garden of Eden, Shangri-la
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: EDEN
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 33D: "54. Famous film pooch"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: TOTO
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 34D: "57. Askew"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that kill intentionally and with premeditation
- Similar words include: away, sour, forth
- Opposite of: on
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: OFF
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 35D: "58. Big 12 athlete"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a member of the shoshonean people of utah and colorado and new mexico
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: UTE
💡 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
35 Down Clues
70 Total Clues
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