The Suns On Scoreboards Crossword (2024)

FAQs

What is the hardest day for the NYT crossword? ›

The Saturday crossword is actually the hardest puzzle of the week. Mondays have the most straightforward clues and Saturday clues are the hardest, or involve the most wordplay. Contrary to popular belief, the Sunday puzzles are midweek difficulty, not the hardest.

Most cryptic crosswords provide the number of letters in the answer, or in the case of phrases, a series of numbers to denote the letters in each word: "cryptic crossword" would be clued with "(7,9)" following the clue. More advanced puzzles may drop this portion of the clue.

The crosswords are designed to increase in difficulty throughout the week, with the easiest on Monday and the most difficult on Saturday. The larger Sunday crossword, which appears in The New York Times Magazine, is an icon in American culture; it is typically intended to be as difficult as a Thursday puzzle.

A renowned British crossword maker called Marc Breman created in 2018 what's thought to be the world's hardest cryptic crossword to date. Not only are the clues fiendishly hard, but the crossword itself is rather large, with 64 clues.

Fill in the blanks first

Every puzzle usually has a small handful of fill-in-the-blanks, so if you're looking to get an early confidence boost, scan the list of clues for fill-in-the-blanks and knock them out early.

The average time it takes to complete a crossword puzzle is 20 minutes, with a standard deviation of 5 minutes.

Speaking of foreign words, if the answer is a foreign word, the clue will often include another word from the same language. If not, then you might see a specific indication such as (fr.) or (sp.). For example HOLA might be clued as Hello (sp.), Hello in Spanish, or Juan's Hello.

What does [] mean in crosswords? ›

By convention (no firm rule on this), clues in square brackets indicate a non-verbal action or a utterance.

The most obvious tip is to go through and write in the start letters straight away. Use the cross-off grid to keep track of which letters you have placed so that you don't accidentally place more than one letter at once. Sometimes the starting letters will give you a tip off as to a word straight away, but not always.

Many puzzle fans love the deviously difficult New York Times Friday and Saturday crosswords: They're the hardest puzzles around, and once you've conquered them, you're a true Puzzlemaster!

On average, Thursday puzzles are harder than Friday puzzles. It's the only exception to each day being harder than the day before, and most likely attributable to the tricks on Thursday. Sunday puzzles are usually between Wednesday and Thursday in difficulty when the increased size of the puzzle is factored out.

If you subscribe, you get access to all the daily puzzles and the archive. The Monday crosswords are the easiest, and the puzzles get harder as the week goes on.

The New York Times Crossword increases in difficulty from Monday to Saturday. The Sunday puzzle is approximately on the same difficulty level as the Wednesday or Thursday puzzle, and is larger than other daily puzzles.