How to Solve the New York Times Crossword (2024)

FAQs

How to get better at the New York Times crossword puzzle? ›

The crosswords are designed to increase in difficulty throughout the week, with the easiest on Monday and the most difficult on Saturday. The larger Sunday crossword, which appears in The New York Times Magazine, is an icon in American culture; it is typically intended to be as difficult as a Thursday puzzle.

The Saturday crossword is actually the hardest puzzle of the week. Mondays have the most straightforward clues and Saturday clues are the hardest, or involve the most wordplay. Contrary to popular belief, the Sunday puzzles are midweek difficulty, not the hardest.

The acceptance rate is between 4% and 7%. Anecdotally Will Shortz has said that as of 2009, he receives over a hundred puzzles per week.

In case you didn't know, the daily New York Times Crossword has a difficulty curve as the week goes on. Monday is the easiest puzzle, and then Tuesday is a little harder, climbing up to Saturday, which is the hardest day of the week.

What "man" first seems like in the sentence "The old man the boat" The answer is noun.

The paper receives more than 200 puzzle submissions each week, according to Ezersky. New York Times Sunday crossword constructors are paid $1,500 for their first or second puzzles; $2,250 for their third or more; dailies pay $500/$750, following the formula.

WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — The small dashes in a puzzle's list of clues can signify a number of things. They can refer to the name of a symbol: a dash, a minus sign or a hyphen, for example.

Fill in the blanks first

Every puzzle usually has a small handful of fill-in-the-blanks, so if you're looking to get an early confidence boost, scan the list of clues for fill-in-the-blanks and knock them out early.

How do people get good at crossword puzzles? ›

Work on the Clues You Know When you start a crossword puzzle, focus on the clues you know first. Fill in the answers to the clues that you're confident about, as this will give you a foundation to build upon. Once you have a few answers in place, it can be easier to solve the remaining clues.

Beyond that, Pillai says, “there is a hypothesis that [doing crossword puzzles] improves working memory or one's ability to keep multiple things in mind at the same time.” This improved memory reserve, the thinking goes, could compensate for some of the losses in cognitive function caused by the onset of dementia.

The crosswords are designed to increase in difficulty throughout the week, with the easiest on Monday and the most difficult on Saturday. The larger Sunday crossword, which appears in The New York Times Magazine, is an icon in American culture; it is typically intended to be as difficult as a Thursday puzzle.

The Monday crosswords are the easiest, and the puzzles get harder as the week goes on. Practice on the Mondays before pushing yourself to Tuesday puzzles.

A rebus in a crossword is a specific square in which multiple letters should be input to form part of the solution. For example a player may see squares for 5-letters to be input, but the final square could contain a word or multiple letters instead of just one letter.

The Rebus Button in NYT Crossword: A Twist in Puzzle Solving Introduction The "Rebus" button in the New York Times (NYT) crossword puzzle offers solvers a unique challenge by allowing multiple letters or symbols to occupy a single square. As of my last update in September 2021, here's a brief overvie…