New York Times Crossword Answers, Stats, Observations
XWord Info contains data about NYT puzzles dating back to 1942. Have fun exploring and you'll start seeing crosswords in a whole new light. Curious? Take the XWord Info Tour or see the FAQ.
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Puzzles
- Solutions from a calendar
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- Sunday puzzles listed by date with titles
- Puzzles with circles or shaded squares
- Rebus puzzles (multiple letters or symbols in a single box)
- Puzzles with the fewest and most blocks
- 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
- Record stacks and some notable 15s
- Grids with unchecked squares
- Grids with no short answers or with very short answers
- Grids with repeated answer words
- Uniclue puzzles
- Non-square or other oddly shaped grids
- Freshness Factor™ Hall of Fame
- Most common grid patterns
- Patrick Berry's 2011 special six-part "Cross" word contest puzzles and solutions
- Eugene T. Maleska's stepquotes
- The six 1999 Millennium puzzles.
- Will Shortz picks his favorite puzzles and his favorite constructors
- Puzzles with comments from Will Shortz
- Will Shortz provides a clue-by-clue analysis of how he edits a crossword
- Puzzles with Notepads or Jim's personal notes
- Jeff Chen's Puzzles of the Week: solve them or view grids with comments or constructors
- The Misenko duplicates
- Stats about NYT Puzzle Editors
Variety (Second Sunday)
- Acrostics Solve online!
- Cryptic, Diagramless, PandA, etc.
- Variety puzzle FAQ
Personal collections
- Grid Art — puzzles that caught my eye
- Puzzles with interesting visual elements
- Nonlinear puzzles
★ Tools for Constructors ★
- Clue and Answer Finder: shows clues used for any answer, or finds words that match any pattern — our most popular page!
- Analyze your own puzzle or present your puzzle on a web page for anyone to solve
- Search through clues or notepads
- Understand the different account levels
- Read about the XWord Info Word List
- NEW: Download the XWord Info Word List
Across Lite and PDF links
- Recent puzzles in Across Lite and PDF
- Across Lite files organized 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
- Most popular 15s across all puzzles
- 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 prolific authors (baseball cards)
- Constructors from the past month
- Puzzle counts by day of week
- Puzzle counts by year
- Pangrams sorted by constructor
- Puzzles by the JASA Crossword Class
- Shortz Number and puzzle totals
- Highest lifetime Scrabble average
- Value
- 417 Shortz Era constructor photos
- Debut words by constructor
- Constructor debuts by year
- Variety puzzle constructors
- Youngest constructors
- Stats about women constructors
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 has all 16,083 pre-Shortz crosswords from 2/15/1942 to 11/20/1993.
Selected pre-Shortz observations
Tips
- Click on any date to see that day's full puzzle including answers.
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- Questions? See the XWord Info FAQ list.
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★ Collaborate and Compete
Now you can solve NYT puzzles with your friends, or compete in a new way.- To begin, read the FAQ
- Collaborate with a friend
- Compete against a friend
Clue and Answer Finder
The XWord Info Finder page displays clues for any word, or words that match any pattern.You can now search clues as well.
Contact us
XWord Info was created by Jim Horne.It is now operated by Jeff Chen who provides commentary on each daily puzzle.
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Jim sometimes still writes about crosswords at his personal blog: The Further Adventures of Jim Horne
About the Database
There are 8,649 Shortz Era puzzles from Sunday, November 21, 1993 to Wednesday, July 26, 2017.
Puzzles come from 855 different constructors and include 107,464 unique answer words.
We now have an additional 16,083 older puzzles going back to Sunday, February 15, 1942.
Info for programmers
- XPF Universal Data Format (XML) defined
- Puzzles in JSON format with sample code
The Crossword Blogosphere
The latest posts from various blogsRecent pre-Shortzian blog posts
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Some Older Special Posts
- Hello, I Must Be Going
- The NYT Crossword Crisis
- Jim's interview with Will Shortz
- Notable Puzzles of 2010
- Notable Puzzles of 2011
- Notable Puzzles of 2012
- Notable Puzzles of 2013
- Notable Puzzles of 2014
Help support XWord Info
XWord Info is only possible when people like you choose to support it through donations.
Donate to get access to XWord Info for a year.
Science Puzzles
The Science section in the December 7, 2010 New York Times was a special edition about the science of puzzles. Jim contributed an essay and two puzzles.Other puzzle links
- A Million Little Boxes, a story from FiveThirtyEight.com about the ACPT
- Garson Hampfield, Crossword Inker
- We're in the cloud
- Options for pop-up tooltips
XWord Info © 2007-2017, Jim Horne. Crossword puzzles © 1942-2017, The New York Times.
Visual design is by Robin Troy. 0.30 sec