Crossword Clue Book

Product Information

A puzzle by Jeremiah Farrell published in The New York Times on the day of the U.S. presidential election is a Shrodinger puzzle; 39 Across, “Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper (!),” can be either BILL CLINTON ELECTED or BOB DOLE ELECTED, and the rest of the puzzle works either way.

Word Crossy: Cheats for Word Crossy can be found with our crossword-solver tool. Imagine crosswords but with coin collection and competition. Consider the all-important theme. Crossword writers frequently use themes or even tell stories with their clever puzzles. For instance, if the theme is ballet, an easy answer to “point of pain for dancers” might be “toe.” LA Times Crossword: Solution-finding is just as hard with this paper, originally founded in 1881. People frequently ask, “What are the answers to today’s LA Times crossword?” Somewhat ironically, The New York Times complains that crosswords are a “sinful waste” in which solvers “get nothing out of it except a primitive form of mental exercise, and success or failure in any given attempt is equally irrelevant to mental development.” ( The New York Times will later become famous for its top-notch crosswords.)Start with an easier puzzle, then work your way up. If you’re looking up Monday and Tuesday NYT crosswords’ cheats, don’t discourage yourself by trying a Thursday grid. Easy puzzles are a great place to start, with crosswords later in the week getting progressively harder. Don’t expect to be a wiz at a difficult crossword right off the bat! Map out your grid. If you’re using a simple or free crossword-maker, you can move on to creating your list of clues. If you want to create an in-depth, professional-looking crossword, you’ll want to map out your grid first before moving onto the next step. Professional grids are typically in symmetrical squares; The New York Times crosswords are typically 15 squares by 15 squares. The book Two Across by Jeff Bartsch tells the story of a romance in which two brainy people communicate their love via clever crosswords. WSJ Crossword: The Wall Street Journal’s puzzles are, in their words, “America’s most elegant, adventurous, and addictive crosswords.” They’re frequently themed and can be quite difficult to figure out crossword solutions for.

Question marks often imply wordplay or puns. Usually, crossword clues are written with no punctuation at all, so if you see a question mark, it implies that the answer won’t be as straightforward as you’d think. Think of puns, wordplay, homonyms, and less-obvious answers. The World’s Sunday crossword begins to spread to other newspapers. The Pittsburgh Press publishes their first crosswords this year.

Cryptic crosswords are like normal crosswords, but the clues tend to involve wordplay and also have very convoluted, intentionally confusing hints. If you’re doing a cryptic crossword, know that the definition is typically hiding in plain sight, and don’t lose heart!

Roger Squires of the UK is officially recognized by Guinness World Records for being the most prolific crossword compiler as he publishes his 66,666th crossword. Washington Post Crossword: Their daily crosswords are free and fun to play. They also have a “Monthly Meta Crossword” that’s themed. USA Today Crossword: Besides free crosswords, USA Today also offers other games, like sudoku and mahjong. If you’re a teacher or a parent trying to learn how to create a crossword puzzle as an educational tool, it’s quite easy!

You’ll need a crossword-maker. Here are a few places where you can make your own free printable crossword puzzles for kids:

On Dec. 21, 1913, in a Sunday edition of The New York World, the first-ever “word-cross” puzzle appeared. The first-ever cruciverbalist, or person skilled in the creation or solving of crossword puzzles, was a journalist named Arthur Wynne from Liverpool, who’d immigrated to the states. A few weeks after the first word puzzle of its kind appeared, a typesetting error changed the name “word-cross” to “cross-word,” and it’s been called a crossword puzzle since. Famed lyricist Stephen Sondheim (of Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, and A Little Night Music) introduces Americans to the British-style cryptic crossword in New York magazine. Approaching a crossword clue can be intimidating, especially if you're new to solving puzzles. The first step is to read the clue carefully and try to identify any obvious hints or clues. Is the clue a definition, a pun, or a play on words? What tense or part of speech is the answer likely to be? Answering these questions can give you a head start in figuring out the solution.It can be hard to understand a crossword clue because crossword-writers are absolutely notorious for being cryptic. A good crossword player is typically a master riddle-solver, as one has to really think outside of the box to figure out some of these more difficult hints. Here are a few crossword-solving tips: Make a first pass in one direction, usually starting with 1 Across, and solve the most obvious clues first. For instance, solve for fill-in-the-blank questions first, as they tend to be more obvious than others.