New York Times daily crossword

What solvers mean by the daily crossword

When people search for the New York Times daily crossword, they usually want today's 15 by 15 puzzle, the one edited for the newspaper since Margaret Farrar set the house style and, since 1993, edited by Will Shortz. The crossword began in the Times on February 15, 1942. Constructors are freelancers. The editor chooses the grid, the theme, and the clue voice.

Weekday grids are 15 squares on a side. Sunday grids in the magazine are 21 by 21. That size difference is why a Sunday solve takes longer even when the clues are not the hardest of the week. The Times has said the Sunday puzzle is meant to land near the middle of the week in difficulty, not at Saturday's peak.

The Mini, introduced for a quicker solve, is 5 by 5 from Sunday through Friday and 7 by 7 on Saturday, according to the paper's own history of the puzzle. The Midi, announced by New York Times Games as a subscriber puzzle between the Mini and the daily, runs from 9 by 9 to 11 by 11, with 9 by 9 as the usual size. Midi puzzles are titled. The daily Monday-to-Saturday crossword usually is not.

Monday through Sunday

Monday is the on-ramp: familiar words, straightforward definitions, and a theme you can see once a few long answers are in. Tuesday adds a little misdirection. Wednesday is where many solvers meet their first rebus, trick theme, or question-mark clue of the week. Thursday experiments. Friday and Saturday drop the theme more often and lean on harder vocabulary, misdirection, and denser crossings.

A printable crossword from the Times is the same puzzle on paper: black squares, numbers, and across and down clues, with the solution held back. The Times sells that access with its games subscription. This site does not reprint those grids or those answers. Copyright covers the filled diagram and the clue list.

Searching for a New York Times crossword puzzle answer usually means the solver is stuck on today's grid or wants yesterday's solution. The Times publishes solutions in the paper and in its games apps after the puzzle is live. Copying a filled grid into another site does not make a new puzzle. If you want the same muscles, check and reveal tools, use the original grids here. Reveal fills a letter, a word, or the whole diagram from our own answer key.

How the digital puzzle behaves

On a computer, the Times crossword uses arrow keys to move, space to switch between across and down or to clear a square, backspace to delete, and tab to jump clues. A lifesaver menu checks or reveals a square, a word, or the puzzle, and autocheck marks a letter as you type. The help center notes that check and reveal break a streak.

Pencil entries are lighter. Checked letters that match the key are shown differently from letters you have only typed. That split matters: a full grid can still be wrong if you never checked it. Our board copies those actions. Arrow keys set the direction and step. Space switches across and down. Tab moves to the next clue in that direction. Check and Reveal sit in the toolbar, including autocheck.

The Times also keeps statistics, streaks, and an archive for subscribers. Leaderboards and a submission path for constructors sit beside the solve. None of that archive is mirrored here. Folio's archive is a short list of original diagrams: a 5 by 5 mini, a 7 by 7 daily with four chambers, and a 9 by 9 Sunday. They are practice grids, not the newspaper puzzle of the day.

Printable grids and the answer search

A large share of Times crossword searches add the words printable or answers. Printable means an empty diagram: black squares, numbers, and two clue lists, Across and Down. The solver writes in pencil or pen. Answers means the filled grid or a list of the entries, usually wanted after a square will not yield. Those are different jobs. Printing the puzzle is part of solving it. Opening the answer key first skips the crossings that make the puzzle a puzzle.

The Times has published the crossword in the newspaper since February 15, 1942, and the solution follows in a later edition or inside the games product. Margaret Farrar was the first editor and set much of the American house style: symmetrical blocks, entries of at least three letters in a standard daily, and clues that a general reader can parse. Will Shortz has edited the puzzle since 1993. Constructors still submit original grids. The editor accepts a small fraction of them. That pipeline is why two Mondays can share a difficulty and still feel like different authors.

If you print a Folio grid, use the printable page for that title. The sheet shows blocks and numbers and the clues we wrote. It does not print the letters. You can solve on paper and then type the result into the board, or you can stay on the screen and use Check Letter when one crossing is the only thing left. Reveal Letter writes the keyed letter and marks it, so a later look at the grid still shows which squares were given to you.

People also search the daily, the Sunday, and the mini as if they were separate products, because they are. The daily 15 by 15 carries the themed week. The Sunday 21 by 21 is the long puzzle in the magazine, aimed near the middle of the week for difficulty and well above it for time. The Mini is the short one, 5 by 5 most days and 7 by 7 on Saturday. The Midi, added later for subscribers, defaults to 9 by 9 and can go to 11 by 11, without the Monday-to-Saturday difficulty ladder. Folio uses the words mini, daily, and Sunday for three original sizes, and the pages say so in the first paragraph.