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.
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| July 12, 2025 | XWordHint Today Trends & Vibez |
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 (36 clues)
🧩 1A: "1. "That was fun!""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: WHATABLAST
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 2A: "11. Actress Diana of "All Creatures Great and Small" (2020)"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: RIGG
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 3A: "15. One might start fermenting in the kitchen"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: HOMEBREWER
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 4A: "16. Classic Langston Hughes poem with a comma in its title"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ITOO
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 5A: "17. It features high wind movements"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: OBOESONATA
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 6A: "18. Latin for "goodbye""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a long depression in the surface of the land that usually contains a river
- Similar words include: valley
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: VALE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 7A: "19. What might be seen around a star"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a temporary police force
- Similar words include: posse comitatus
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: POSSE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 8A: "20. Shape of Saturn's rings"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that sound recording consisting of a disk with a continuous groove; used to reproduce music by rotating while a phonograph needle tracks in the groove
- Similar words include: magnetic disc, platter, disk
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: DISC
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 9A: "21. Star of TV and film who wrote the memoir "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I've Learned""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ALDA
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 10A: "22. Spot for newborn care"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a structure in which animals lay eggs or give birth to their young
- Similar words include: nestle, cuddle, nuzzle
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: NEST
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 11A: "24. Awards honoring excellence in magazine publishing"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ELLIES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 12A: "26. Earth's crust and others"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that one of several parallel layers of material arranged one on top of another (such as a layer of tissue or cells in an organism or a layer of sedimentary rock)
- Similar words include: layer, level, social class
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: STRATA
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 13A: "30. Shade akin to bone or eggshell"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a very light brown
- Similar words include: beige
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ECRU
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 14A: "32. "No preference""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that one or some or every or all without specification
- Similar words include: whatever, whatsoever
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ANY
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 15A: "33. Snobby sort"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a person regarded as arrogant and annoying
- Similar words include: snoot, snot, snob
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: PRIG
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 16A: "34. Bring up to date, perhaps"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that do over, as of (part of) a house
- Similar words include: reconstruct, remodel, make over
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: REDO
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 17A: "36. Terms of a trade"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves)
- Similar words include: cant, slang, argot
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LINGO
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 18A: "38. With 8-Down, like the upcoming release from one's favorite band"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that with eagerness; in an eager manner
- Similar words include: thirstily
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: EAGERLY
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 19A: "40. Quinta of "Abbott Elementary""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BRUNSON
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 20A: "42. Lose, as a tail"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that avoid or try to avoid fulfilling, answering, or performing (duties, questions, or issues)
- Similar words include: hedge, elude, put off
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: EVADE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 21A: "43. Build up"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a growth in strength or number or importance
- Similar words include: wax, develop, ascend
- Opposite of: descent, go to bed
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: RISE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 22A: "45. Its official languages are Chamorro and English"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the largest and southernmost island in the marianas which is administered as a territory of the united states; it was ceded by spain to the united states in 1898
- Similar words include: GU
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: GUAM
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 23A: "46. "Dese ___ Dose" (Glenn Miller composition)"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: DEM
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 24A: "47. Mideast port with a natural harbor"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that an important port of yemen; located on the gulf of aden; its strategic location has made it a major trading center of southern arabia since ancient times
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ADEN
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 25A: "49. Faint"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that pathetically lacking in force or effectiveness
- Similar words include: sapless, decrepit, weak
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: FEEBLE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 26A: "51. Smith who was the first woman to receive the Baseball Writers' Association of America's Career Excellence Award"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CLAIRE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 27A: "53. Symbol of defiance and solidarity"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a hand with the fingers clenched in the palm (as for hitting)
- Similar words include: clenched fist
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: FIST
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 28A: "55. Period ender"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a noisemaker (as at parties or games) that makes a loud noise when you blow through it
- Similar words include: saddle horn, trump, French horn
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: HORN
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 29A: "56. Waste"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a powerful stroke with the fist or a weapon
- Similar words include: botch up, bump, black eye
- Opposite of: conserve
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BLOW
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 30A: "58. Member of a sub-Saharan matriarchal clan"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that doglike nocturnal mammal of africa and southern asia that feeds chiefly on carrion
- Similar words include: hyaena
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: HYENA
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 31A: "63. Big ones can be difficult to manage"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that an inflated feeling of pride in your superiority to others
- Similar words include: self, ego, self-importance
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: EGOS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 32A: "64. One tirelessly making calls ahead of Election Day"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ROBODIALER
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 33A: "66. ___ Sea, body of water between Borneo and the Philippines"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SULU
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 34A: "67. Convention challenger"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a destroyer of images used in religious worship
- Similar words include: image breaker
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ICONOCLAST
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 35A: "68. Look"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that give a certain impression or have a certain outward aspect
- Similar words include: look, appear
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SEEM
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 36A: "69. Adjunct faculty?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SIXTHSENSE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🔍 Down Clues - Strategic Hints (36 clues)
🧩 1D: "1. Smack"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Similar words include: wallop, whack, wham
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: WHOP
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 2D: "2. Kind of spider believed to spread to distant areas via railway"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a disreputable vagrant
- Similar words include: bum, tramp
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: HOBO
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 3D: "3. Biblical prophet whom Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as "an extremist for justice" in his "Letter From Birmingham Jail""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a hebrew shepherd and minor prophet
- Similar words include: Book of Amos
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AMOS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 4D: "4. Youth baseball supporters"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the starting place for each hole on a golf course
- Similar words include: golf tee, tee up, teeing ground
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: TEES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 5D: "5. Skipping music, say"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that go away or leave
- Similar words include: lacking, remove, wanting
- Opposite of: present
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ABSENT
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 6D: "6. "Amigo!""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: BRO
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 7D: "7. Spots, so to speak"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that bestow a quality on
- Similar words include: loan, impart, add
- Opposite of: borrow
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LENDS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 8D: "8. See 38-Across"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that look forward to the probable occurrence of
- Similar words include: expect, anticipated, await
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AWAITED
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 9D: "9. Staging areas"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a group of things of the same kind that belong together and are so used
- Similar words include: define, go under, band
- Opposite of: rise
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SETS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 10D: "10. Detective, at times"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that an investigator who is employed to find missing persons or missing goods
- Similar words include: tracer bullet
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: TRACER
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 11D: "11. Sooner, to a Longhorn"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the contestant you hope to defeat
- Similar words include: touch, equal, challenger
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: RIVAL
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 12D: "12. Order that might include mortadella and capicola"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ITALIANSUB
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 13D: "13. First score during extra time in sudden-death soccer"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: GOLDENGOAL
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 14D: "14. "I'm ready, but be nice""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: GOEASYONME
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 15D: "23. Rap's ___ Sweatshirt"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a british peer ranking below a marquess and above a viscount
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: EARL
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 16D: "25. Doozy"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a very attractive or seductive looking woman
- Similar words include: sweetheart, knockout, mantrap
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LULU
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 17D: "26. Rush to find a mate?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SPEEDCHESS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 18D: "27. Many a book by Paul Theroux"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a film or illustrated lecture on traveling
- Similar words include: travelog
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: TRAVELOGUE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 19D: "28. Series of hoops and hurdles"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a set of confused and meaningless statements
- Similar words include: rigmarole
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: RIGAMAROLE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 20D: "29. Went from 0 to 60?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that people who are old collectively
- Similar words include: older, of age, age
- Opposite of: young, rejuvenate
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AGED
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 21D: "31. Cylindrical grain holders"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that nut of any of several trees of the genus corylus
- Similar words include: cobnut, hazelnut, great black-backed gull
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: COBS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 22D: "35. Jane who says "Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a shallow salt lake in south central australia about 35 feet below sea level; the largest lake in the country and the lowest point on the continent
- Similar words include: Lake Eyre
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: EYRE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 23D: "37. Kansas-born playwright with a Pulitzer"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that english prelate noted for his pessimistic sermons and articles (1860-1954)
- Similar words include: Gloomy Dean, William Ralph Inge, William Inge
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: INGE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 24D: "39. Buns"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the back of a military formation or procession
- Similar words include: keister, hindquarters, can
- Opposite of: level, front
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: REAR
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 25D: "41. Enforcers of rules, informally"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that (sports) the chief official (as in boxing or american football) who is expected to ensure fair play
- Similar words include: ref, referee
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: REFS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 26D: "44. Fixed-format summary of an article, as on Wikipedia"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: INFOBOX
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 27D: "48. Waste"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the remains of something that has been destroyed or broken up
- Similar words include: detritus, junk, dust
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: DEBRIS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 28D: "50. Important subject in law school"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that motivation based on ideas of right and wrong
- Similar words include: morals, value orientation, moral philosophy
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ETHICS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 29D: "52. "What it boils down to is this …""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: INSUM
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 30D: "54. [stomps foot down]"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: IWONT
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 31D: "57. Spots"
🎯 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!
🧩 32D: "59. Law school for Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a university in connecticut
- Similar words include: Elihu Yale, Yale University
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: YALE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 33D: "60. Zip"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a feeling of strong eagerness (usually in favor of a person or cause)
- Similar words include: panache, ardour, flair
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ELAN
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 34D: "61. Wit's end?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a strip of land projecting into a body of water
- Similar words include: cape
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: NESS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 35D: "62. Las pinturas de Frida Kahlo, por ejemplo"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ARTE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 36D: "65. "I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say ___" ("The Simpsons" episode)"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the syllable naming the first (tonic) note of any major scale in solmization
- Similar words include: do, ut
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: DOH
💡 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
36 Across Clues
36 Down Clues
72 Total Clues
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