New York Times Crossword Stats and Observations

XWord Info contains data about NYT puzzles dating back to November, 1993, covering the entire time that Will Shortz has been Puzzle Editor. The links below will be of most interest to constructors and serious solvers but occasional dabblers will be entertained too. Explore around and you'll no doubt see crosswords in a whole new light.

Warning: this site does give away lots of answers. If you're not up to date and would rather solve the puzzles on your own, spending too much time here will spoil your fun.

In the news: In October 2008, my blog moved to wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com
See the announcements from Garson Hampfield and Will Shortz.

Puzzles

• Any puzzle from a calendar with answers
• Sunday puzzles by title
• Puzzles with circles identifying special letters
• Rebus puzzles (multiple letters or symbols in a single box)
• Puzzles with the fewest and most blocks (black squares)
• Highest and lowest word count puzzles
• Puzzles with Notepads or other special annotations
• Pangrams and puzzles with the fewest letters used
• Scrabble scores: highest daily, lowest daily, highest Sunday, lowest Sunday
• Most common grid patterns
• Grid Art — puzzles that caught my eye
• Freshness Factor™ Hall of Fame

About the Database

Clue and Answer Finder

• The Finder page displays clues for any word, or words that match any pattern

Words

• Most popular answer words
• Most popular words by length
• All Fifteen-letter words sorted alphabetically
• Even longer words sorted by length
• Random or Recent unique words

Constructors

• Most prodigious authors
• Puzzle counts by day of week
• Puzzle counts by year
• Shortz Number and other info
• Garson Hampfield, Crossword Inker

Search XWord Info and XWord Blog