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    • Contents

    Places to play crosswords

    Basic crossword rules

    Understanding the clues

    Common crossword words

    Themes

    Disclaimers

    More resources

    Places to play crosswords

    The New York Times - this is the crossword gold standard! it unfortunately does require a nyt games subscription, but if ur serious about crosswords it has challenging crosswords, bonus puzzles, and years of crosswords in the archives. There is also a free daily mini crossword

    The LA Times - MY FAVORITE! Increases in difficulty throughout the week, has themes but no rebuses

    USA Today - easier than the la times imo, but only lets you solve a few puzzles without a subscription

    The Washington Post - i haven’t actually played this one so i cannot say anything about it, but at a glance it seems decent

    dictionary.com - has normal crosswords as well as sunday, easy, and mini crosswords. Sometimes the clues on this one make me mad so i don’t play it very often lol

    The Atlantic - small grid but can have tricky clues! Gets harder throughout the week

    my home page - i personally do NOT like this crossword but it’s a quick, easy puzzle to start learning how to solve crosswords. huge ty to boatloadpuzzles for the code!!!

    Basic crossword rules

    Difficulty: Puzzles get harder throughout the week, so monday is the easiest and saturday is the hardest. Sunday is a larger puzzle, but it’s medium difficulty

    Themes: The nyt has themes on monday-thursday and sunday, but other websites may have them on different days. Themeless puzzles are on friday and saturday. Scroll down to read more about themes

    Crosswords can have multiple words in a line, abbreviations, slang, and more. Good crosswords will be an intersection of different types of language, not just trivia or proper English.

    Check: this is a function on online crosswords that will tell you if the letter you put in the square is correct or not without spoiling the correct answer

    Reveal: similar to check, reveal will give you the correct answer for a square, clue (word), or the entire puzzle

    Understanding the clues

    Many parts of this section are referenced from this nyt article. This is a brief version, but their article goes more in depth. Clues will match the answer in several ways. Some examples include:

    Plurality: plural clues have plural answers, and singular clues have singular answers. Clues that combine two words with “and” will be plural, and clues that combine two words with “or” will be singular

  • Ex. the clue “biden and obama” and the clue “leaders of the united states” are both plural and would both have the plural answer of “presidents”
  • Ex. the clue “biden or obama” and the clue “leader of the united states” are both singular and would have the singular answer of “president”

    • Abbreviation: If the clue is abbreviated, or includes the phrases “in short,” “in brief,” or “abbr.,” then the answer will be abbreviated. Some very common abbreviations will not follow this rule

  • Ex. the clue “GPS path” would have the answer “RTE” as an abbreviation for the word “route”
  • Ex. the clue “important community broadcast” may have the answer “PSA” for the phrase “public safety announcement.” even though the clue is not abbreviated, the abbreviation is common enough that the answer may be obvious without the extra hint from an abbreviated clue

    • Tense: clues will be in the same tense as the answer, like past tense or -ing

  • Ex. the clue “running away” would have the answer “fleeing,” but the clue “ran away” would have the answer “fled”

    • Part of speech: clues will be the same part of speech as the answer, such as noun, verb, adjective, etc.

    Language: if a clue is in a foreign language, the answer will be in that same foreign language

  • Ex. the clue “uno + dos” would have the answer “tres”

    • Slang/context: If a clue is slangy or more casual, the answer will match the clue’s “tone”

  • Ex. the clue “homies” could have the answer “bros,” but not “fellows”

    • The punctuation used in a clue can also hint at how to solve it.

    Question mark?: this is one of the trickiest clue formats for new crossword solvers. A question mark at the end of a clue indicates that there is some strange wordplay or pun or creative definition going on in the answer. Try to think of multiple definitions of words for these, because the answers will not be straightforward

  • Ex. the clue “current events?” would have the answer “tides,” as in events that occur in relation to water currents (i stole this example from that nyt article. This exact clue comes up often)

    • “Quotation marks”: indicate that the clue should be read like a person saying it out loud, so the answer should also read like something one would say out loud

  • Ex. the clue “‘that hurt!’” would have the answer “ouch”

    • [Brackets]: similar to quotation marks, but for nonverbal gestures. The answer may be a thought or feeling associated with that gesture

  • Ex. the clue “[shrug]” would have the answer “meh”

    • Capitalization: a capital letter in a clue refers to a proper noun

  • Ex. the clue “home for a cub” would have the answer “den,” but the clue “home for a Cub” would have the answer “Chicago,” as a reference to the Chicago Cubs baseball team

    • Common crossword words

    Generally, small words with lots of vowels show up in the crossword often because they’re easier to fit in, so recognizing some of them can help get you unstuck. If you find a clue that is a very specific piece of trivia that sort of relates to one of these, you can figure out the word without actually knowing the trivia.

  • ale/ipa - both are beers. IPA stands for international pale ale, and shows up with clues about “hoppy” beverages. Ale will show up in the context of a general bar/pub drink
  • eno/ono - brian eno and yoko ono are both experimental musicians, so the crossword constructors looooove to throw in clues that could apply to either to throw you off
  • acme/apex - both refer to the highest point. Same thing, they have similar clues to throw you off
  • tsa/faa - transportation security administration and the federal aviation administration. Both refer to airports and flying, but tsa will refer more to security inside airports and the faa to safety outside airports
  • cia/nsa - central intelligence agency and national security agency. Similar contexts, but nsa clues tend to focus on cybersecurity/computers and cia clues focus on foreign operations
  • Ahi - a type of tuna, often given with a clue like “used in sushi”
  • Et al - abbreviation used to denote additional authors in a bibliography
  • Aer lingus - usually given as the clue “___ lingus” with the answer “aer.” apparently this is an irish airline? I had to look that up bc i literally only know this from the crossword
  • Aloe - a desert plant used in skincare and burn soothing.
  • Oreo - cmon it’s an oreo. Can be clued as “nabisco cookie” or any other oddly specific clue about cookies
  • Edam - a dutch cheese
  • Oslo - the capital of norway

    • There are probably a million clues similar to these, but hopefully this list can give you a little boost when solving!

    Themes

    Themes are like a little bonus puzzle. Themes are when several clues follow a certain rule, usually a form of clever wordplay. The rule is made known to the solver by a clue called a “revealer,” usually located in the bottom right section of the grid. The revealer will have the clue for its word, as well as “... or what the answers to 17, 29, and 36-across have in common,” or a similar phrase. Themed clues are usually the longest clues on the board, and are often across.

    Themes are where the puzzles get weird. They can be straightforward, but often they will have puns, extra letters, missing letters, or rebuses. This nyt article gives the following example for themed clues:

  • BEST SHELLER: “Winner of a pea-preparing contest?” (Original phrase: BEST SELLER)
  • PICK UP SHTICKS: “Lotharios’ lines in a singles bar?” (Original phrase: PICK UP STICKS)
  • ALL DAY SHUCKER: “One preparing corn for long hours?” (Original phrase: ALL DAY SUCKER)
  • MARRY IN SHAM: “Phony wedding?” (Original phrase: MARRYIN’ SAM)

    • But wait, wtf is a rebus? A rebus is where multiple letters are placed into the same square. I’ve only seen these in some of the harder nyt crosswords, so if ur solving on another website, don’t sweat it. I’m going to use a nyt sunday crossword constructed by Drew Schmenner as the example for this, explained further in this article. The revealer clue in this puzzle was “workers seen in five squares in this puzzle?” and the answer was “santas little helpers.” In five squares in this puzzle, instead of putting one letter in the square, you would put “ELF” all in one square. This would fit into both the across and down clues, so both clues would have 2 more letters than their number of squares in the grid. One intersection in this puzzle is between “One who’s not afraid to brag” with the answer SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTER, and “What awaits a tragic hero” with the answer CRUEL FATE. both have the word “ELF” in a single square. Rebuses are SO HARD at first, and not very common, but they are very rewarding to figure out.

    Disclaimers

    Crosswords are fun! They are for fun. It is ok to check or reveal parts of or the entire puzzle, and God knows i do it all the time. Plus, looking up clues is how you can learn new words and get better at solving future puzzles

    Crossword solving is a skill that takes time to develop. It is a very specific combination of trivia, wordplay, and problem-solving. It is not a measure of your intelligence (it would be very impractical for that), and you can get better at it over time. Some puzzles are harder than others, so you can start with the early days of the week on some of the easier websites as long as you are still enjoying it

    Still want to learn more?

    I’d recommend watching Chris Remo solve the nyt crossword on youtube. He solves it everyday and explains his process as he goes, as well as explaining the theme and tricky clues at the end of the puzzle. I used to watch these videos to fall asleep, but then i started trying to fight sleep so i could see him solve the themes lol.

    Also feel free to drop a comment on my home page if ur interested in crosswords!! I love solving them and i can (obviously) geek out about them for a while.

    i've never had a thought in my life. i'm very normal. please believe me.