Analyzing...
Analysis
There are 21 rows and 21 columns, with 0 rebus squares, and 20 cheater squares (marked with "+" in the colorized grid below.)
The grid uses 24 of 26 letters, missing JQ.
It has normal rotational symmetry.
Average word length: 4.94, Scrabble score: 542, Scrabble average: 1.52.
Puzzle has 13 fill-in-the-blank clues and 0 cross-reference clues.
Duplicate clues: White House sight — Animal in an Aesop fable — Square ___ — Time in ads — First name of an Oscar-nominated actress of 1957 — Something you can do with flies — Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, e.g. — Instrument for an angel — What you might call a dog — State with part of I-81: Abbr. — Anagram of the letters O-N-D — This does not fly — Vingt-___ (multiple de trois) — Where to find grooms — Dead follower — These could amount to fortunes — Set of clubs in a bag — One of five on a starfish — Big Australian export — Court concern — Japanese auto make — Father, familiarly — Member of the cat family — One of Frank's wives — Historical period — Dud — Caterpillar product — Hood lead-in — Like many a lot — Liberal arts college in the Keystone State — Stick together — Run off — Legendary Egyptian queen — Spread dirt, in a way — Certain blade — Tinker, for one, in olden days — One of the blanks in the cereal slogan "___ are for ___"
This puzzle has 8 unique answer words.
It has 1 word that debuted in this puzzle and
was later reused:
These words are unique to the Modern Era but have appeared in pre-Shortz puzzles:
These 39 answer words are not legal Scrabble™ entries, which sometimes means they are interesting:
Day of week comparisons
Rebus puzzles are ignored when calculating averages.
Distribution of answer words by length
Letter distribution
Scrabble Score: 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
8 |
10 |
Thumbnails
Various thumbnail views are shown:
- Standard view shows the grid pattern most clearly
- Open Squares (those which don't touch any block, even diagonally) are blue
- Vowel distribution
- Scrabble score uses the same color key as above
- Freshness view shows unique answers in red (see colorized grid below)
With answers
Puzzles that may be similar to this one
Crosswords that share the most words with this one:
Unusual or long words that appear elsewhere:
Identical grids
Other puzzles with the same block pattern as this one:
Topologically similar grids
Other crosswords with exactly 85 blocks, 144 words, 116 open squares, and an average word length of 4.94:
Colorized grid for Sun Dec 18, 2016
The next two sections attempt to show how fresh the grid entries are.
In this view, unusual answers are colored depending on how often they have appeared in other puzzles.
Unique answers are in red, red overwrites orange which overwrites yellow, etc.
Cheater squares are indicated with a + sign.
Unique |
1 other |
2 others |
3 others |
4 others |
Freshness Factor
Freshness score: 41.5 – 70.4 overall percentile, 67.8 Sunday percentile
Freshness Factor is a calculation that compares the number of times words in this puzzle have appeared
in other Modern Era puzzles.
Click here for an explanation.
The chart below shows how many times each word has been used across all NYT puzzles, old and modern including Variety.