New York Times Crossword Answers, Stats, Observations
XWord Info contains data about NYT puzzles dating back to 1983. Have fun exploring and you'll start seeing crosswords in a whole new light. Curious? Take the XWord Info Tour or see the FAQ.
Cathy Allis
The Sunday, April 13, 2008 crossword, HOW INSULTING!, is by Cathy Millhauser
21x21, 138 words, 78 blocks
The Monday, April 14, 2008 crossword is by Christina Houlihan Kelly
15x15, 80 words, 40 blocks
The Tuesday, April 15, 2008 crossword is by Ken Bessette
15x15, 78 words, 34 blocks
Edward Sessa
The Wednesday, April 16, 2008 crossword is by Edward Sessa
15x15, 78 words, 36 blocks
Byron Walden
The Thursday, April 17, 2008 crossword is by Byron Walden
15x15, 76 words, 34 blocks
Joe DiPietro
The Friday, April 18, 2008 crossword is by Joe DiPietro
15x15, 72 words, 30 blocks
Bob Klahn
The Saturday, April 19, 2008 crossword is by Bob Klahn
15x15, 70 words, 27 blocks
John Farmer
The Sunday, April 20, 2008 crossword, SPACED OUT, is by John Farmer
23x23, 170 words, 104 blocks
When the puzzle is done, the letters in the following squares spell a bonus phrase: 7A - 3rd letter, 31A - 5th, 65A - 4th, 104A - 6th, 136A - 3rd, 151A - 1st, 149A - 4th, 133A - 4th, 100A - 1st, 62A - 1st, 29A - 6th
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Across Lite also requires this software.
The next (Monday) puzzle will be available in
16 hours and 15 minutes.
Variety: solve the May 19 acrostic online.
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About the Database
There are 7,120 Shortz-era puzzles from Sunday, November 21, 1993 to Sunday, May 19, 2013.
Puzzles come from 727 different constructors and include 96,129 unique answer words.
New: we now have an additional 3,977 older puzzles going back to Saturday, January 1, 1983.
Puzzles
- Solutions from a calendar
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- Sunday puzzles by date or title
- Puzzles with circles or shaded squares
- Rebus puzzles (multiple letters or symbols in a single box)
- Puzzles with the fewest and most blocks
- Puzzles with Notepads or JNotes
- Highest and lowest word count puzzles
- Puzzles with the longest avg. word length
- Unusual symmetry and asymmetry
- Pangrams and puzzles with the fewest letters used
- Scrabble scores: highest daily, lowest daily, highest Sunday, lowest Sunday
- Schrödinger puzzles aka quantum crosswords
- Most wide open grids
- Notable Fifteens and record stacks
- Grids with unchecked squares
- Grids with no short answers
- Grids with repeated answer words
- Non-square or other oddly shaped grids
- Freshness Factor™ Hall of Fame
- Most common grid patterns
- Will Shortz Picks His Favorites
- Patrick Berry's 2011 special six-part "Cross" word contest puzzles and solutions
Personal collections
- Grid Art — puzzles that caught my eye
- Puzzles with interesting visual elements
- Nonlinear puzzles
Other puzzle links
- Garson Hampfield, Crossword Inker
- Mobile answers for your smart phone at xwordinfo.com/mobile
- or for older smart phones: xwordinfo.com/m
- Options for pop-up tooltips
Variety (Second Sunday)
- Acrostics Solve online!
- Cryptic, Diagramless, PandA, etc.
- Variety puzzle FAQ
Clue and Answer Finder
- The Finder page displays clues for any word, or words that match any pattern
Across Lite and PDF links
- Recent puzzles in Across Lite and PDF
- Across Lite files by constructor
- Across Lite files from a calendar
Words and Letters
- Most popular answer words
- Most popular words by length
- Missing words not found in any puzzles
- All Fifteen-letter words sorted alphabetically
- Even longer words sorted by length
- Debut words in the past month
- Random unique words
- Debut words by year
- Most answers of each length
- Record setting letter counts
- XWord Info Bar Game
Constructors
- Most prodigious authors
- Puzzle counts by day of week
- Puzzle counts by year
- Shortz Number and other info
- Highest lifetime Scrabble average
- Value
- 243 Constructor photos
- Debut words by constructor
- Youngest constructors
- Constructors: you can analyze your own puzzles here
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Older crosswords from The Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project
Data from puzzles before Will Shortz became editor are kept separate from modern puzzle stats. XWord Info currently has 3,977 pre-Shortz crosswords from 1/1/1983 to 11/20/1993.
Selected pre-Shortz observations
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Tips
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I retired from The New York Times on Christmas Day, 2010, but Wordplay, the blog I started, continues.
I sometimes still write about crosswords at my personal blog: The Further Adventures of Jim Horne
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Recent Special Posts
- Hello, I Must Be Going
- The NYT Crossword Crisis
- My interview with Will Shortz
- Notable Puzzles of 2010
- Notable Puzzles of 2011
- Notable Puzzles of 2012
Science Puzzles
The Science section in the December 7, 2010 New York Times was a special edition about the science of puzzles. I contributed an essay and two puzzles.Info for programmers
- XPF Universal Data Format (XML) defined
- Puzzles in JSON format with sample code
Recent pre-Shortzian blog posts
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Recent Wordplay posts
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The Crossword Blogosphere
The latest posts from various blogs
XWord Info © 2007-2013, Jim Horne. Crossword puzzles © 1983-2013, The New York Times.
Visual design is by Robin Troy.