NYT Crossword Answers & Hints – July 18, 2025 | XWordHint Today Trends & Vibez
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 (32 clues)
🧩 1A: "1. Makes good"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that make amends for
- Similar words include: atone, abye, repent
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ATONES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 2A: "7. Down"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that serve oneself to, or consume regularly
- Similar words include: take in, assimilate, have
- Opposite of: abstain
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: INGEST
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 3A: "13. "Psycho" screenwriter Joseph ___"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: STEFANO
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 4A: "14. Uncertain"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: NOTSURE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 5A: "16. "Well, tough!""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: THATSJUSTTOOBAD
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🧩 6A: "18. Hi-___"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a widely distributed system consisting of all the cells able to ingest bacteria or colloidal particles etc, except for certain white blood cells
- Similar words include: ray, Re, reticuloendothelial system
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: RES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 7A: "19. Humdingers"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that (dated slang) a remarkable or excellent thing or person
- Similar words include: corker
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CORKERS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 8A: "20. Certain fraternity guy, informally"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SIG
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🧩 9A: "21. "Les Misérables" number with a number in its name"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ONEDAYMORE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 10A: "23. Instrument with a deep, rounded back"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a substance for packing a joint or coating a porous surface to make it impervious to gas or liquid
- Similar words include: luting
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LUTE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 11A: "24. Cutting tool"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a manicurist who trims the fingernails
- Similar words include: paring knife
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: PARER
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 12A: "25. "My Old ___" (2024 coming-of-age film)"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the fleshy part of the human body that you sit on
- Similar words include: nookie, derriere, arse
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ASS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 13A: "26. Staff notes"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a written proposal or reminder
- Similar words include: memoranda, memo, memorandum
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: MEMOS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 14A: "27. Recent, as a memory"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that recently made, produced, or harvested
- Similar words include: new, refreshful, invigorated
- Opposite of: stale, salty
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: FRESH
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 15A: "29. Winter athlete"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a german semiautomatic pistol
- Similar words include: slider
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LUGER
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🧩 16A: "30. "___ is the most convenient time to tax rich people": David Lloyd George"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the event of dying or departure from life
- Similar words include: last, dying, end
- Opposite of: birth
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: DEATH
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 17A: "31. Verbal flourishes"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: TADAS
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🧩 18A: "32. Between then and now"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SINCE
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🧩 19A: "33. Shepherd's warning"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the sound of growling (as made by animals)
- Similar words include: growling, rumble, grumble
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: GROWL
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🧩 20A: "34. Olympian Owens"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: JESSE
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🧩 21A: "35. Receiving end?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a unit of force equal to the force exerted by gravity; used to indicate the force to which a body is subjected when it is accelerated
- Similar words include: g-force, g
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: GEE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 22A: "36. Works one's way up"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a growth in strength or number or importance
- Similar words include: raise, ascend, surface
- Opposite of: descent, turn in
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: RISES
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🧩 23A: "40. Place to put a pin"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a shaft on which a wheel rotates
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: AXLE
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🧩 24A: "41. Explicit subject for her?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that someone from whom you are descended (but usually more remote than a grandparent)
- Similar words include: ancestor, forerunner, ascendent
- Opposite of: descendant, subsequent
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ANTECEDENT
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 25A: "43. Figure skater Midori"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ITO
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 26A: "44. Concocts"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that make or cause to be or to become
- Similar words include: produce, make, create
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CREATES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 27A: "45. Farm cry"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: MAA
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🧩 28A: "46. Going overboard with the praise"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LAYINGITONTHICK
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 29A: "49. "We don't need to know all the details""
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SPAREUS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 30A: "50. Mixing board"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the range of colour characteristic of a particular artist or painting or school of art
- Similar words include: pallet, pallette
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: PALETTE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 31A: "51. Lifts up"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that fill with high spirits; fill with optimism
- Similar words include: pick up, uplift, intoxicate
- Opposite of: depress
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ELATES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 32A: "52. Theater class assignments"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the place where some action occurs
- Similar words include: shot, tantrum, aspect
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SCENES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🔍 Down Clues - Strategic Hints (34 clues)
🧩 1D: "1. Deity who helped Hercules through his sixth labor"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that (greek mythology) goddess of wisdom and useful arts and prudent warfare; guardian of athens; identified with roman minerva
- Similar words include: Pallas Athene, Athene, Pallas
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ATHENA
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 2D: "2. Short preview"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a worker who teases wool
- Similar words include: tormentor, annoyer, puzzle
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: TEASER
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 3D: "3. Poetic adverb"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that many times at short intervals
- Similar words include: often, oftentimes, frequently
- Opposite of: infrequently, rarely
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: OFT
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 4D: "4. The Brickyard 400 or Southern 500, e.g."
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: NASCARRACE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 5D: "5. Find pleasure in"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that derive or receive pleasure from; get enjoyment from; take pleasure in
- Similar words include: relish, delight, revel
- Opposite of: suffer
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ENJOY
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 6D: "6. Whiskey distiller's mixture"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SOURMASH
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 7D: "7. Buries"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that place in a grave or tomb
- Similar words include: bury, inter, lay to rest
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: INTERS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 8D: "8. French possessive"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: NOTRE
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🧩 9D: "9. Classic hot rods"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: GTOS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 10D: "10. That, in Mexico"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ESO
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 11D: "11. Absorbs"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that contain or include
- Similar words include: colligate, subsume
- Pattern: ________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SUBSUMES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 12D: "12. Quisling, e.g."
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that someone who betrays his country by committing treason
- Similar words include: two-timer, double-crosser, treasonist
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: TRAITOR
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 13D: "13. Blade sharpener"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a leather strap used to sharpen razors
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: STROP
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 14D: "15. They might be rough or perforated"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the boundary of a surface
- Similar words include: border, adjoin, edge
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: EDGES
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 15D: "17. Tiny bit"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SKOSH
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 16D: "22. Part of a trial"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that (military) military action or resources protecting a country against potential enemies
- Similar words include: defense force, Department of Defense, DoD
- Opposite of: offense, offence
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: DEFENSE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 17D: "23. Driver's license, e.g."
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: LEGALID
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 18D: "26. Fight dirty?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that wrestle in mud
- Similar words include: mud-wrestle
- Pattern: __________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: MUDWRESTLE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 19D: "28. Dijon season"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ETE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 20D: "29. Luang Prabang native"
🎯 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!
🧩 21D: "30. Like a 12-Down"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that showing lack of love for your country
- Similar words include: unpatriotic
- Opposite of: loyal, patriotic
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: DISLOYAL
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 22D: "31. They glisten in a classic Irving Berlin tune"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that the upper branches and leaves of a tree or other plant
- Similar words include: treetop, crown
- Pattern: ________
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: TREETOPS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 23D: "32. Congressional record?"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SEXTAPE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 24D: "33. Imply"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: GETAT
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 25D: "34. Where Mandela and Nehru worked on their autobiographies"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a correctional institution used to detain persons who are in the lawful custody of the government (either accused persons awaiting trial or convicted persons serving a sentence)
- Similar words include: put behind bars, jail, imprison
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: JAILS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 26D: "35. Rock with bands"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a laminated metamorphic rock similar to granite
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: GNEISS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 27D: "37. Akkadian or Phoenician"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a member of a group of semitic-speaking peoples of the middle east and northern africa
- Similar words include: Semitic
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: SEMITE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 28D: "38. Passes"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that order by virtue of superior authority; decree
- Similar words include: enact, act out, ordain
- Pattern: ______
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ENACTS
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 29D: "39. Sight in a tomato patch"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that (law) a right or legal share of something; a financial involvement with something
- Similar words include: impale, venture, punt
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: STAKE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 30D: "41. Contest"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that present reasons and arguments
- Similar words include: reason, fence, debate
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: ARGUE
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 31D: "42. Comedian Wyatt"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: _____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CENAC
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 32D: "44. Tech news site"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Pattern: ____
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: CNET
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 33D: "47. ___ the Jairite, biblical minister to King David"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that a militant organization of irish nationalists who used terrorism and guerilla warfare in an effort to drive british forces from northern ireland and achieve a united independent ireland
- Similar words include: individual retirement account, ire, anger
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: IRA
💡 Remember this word for future puzzles!
🧩 34D: "48. Maternal figure"
🎯 Solving Hints:
- Think of something that adult female chicken
- Similar words include: biddy
- Pattern: ___
🔓 Click to reveal answer (spoiler alert!)
Answer: HEN
💡 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
32 Across Clues
34 Down Clues
66 Total Clues
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