The Cruciverbalist

How to complete The Cruciverbalist

Finishing a Medium-or-harder crossword without help means filling every square with the correct letters using only the clues and crossing answers. The payoff is the click of recognizing wordplay, abbreviations, and the puzzle's recurring vocabulary that beginners get stuck on.

1. Pick a paper or app with graded difficulty (NYT Wednesday, Guardian Quick, or LA Times) so you know you cleared Medium or above.
2. Solve the short fill-in-the-blank and pop-culture clues first to plant letters across the grid.
3. Use crossings: when an Across answer is uncertain, the letters from confirmed Down answers narrow it.
4. Watch for trick clues marked with a question mark, which signal puns, and short common 'crosswordese' words like ERA, OREO, ALOE.
5. Leave a confident guess in pencil and revisit; one corrected letter often unlocks a whole corner.

Tips

• Plural and tense in the clue must match the answer (clue ends in -s, so does the answer).
• Abbreviated clues ('Dr.'s org.') mean an abbreviated answer (AMA).
• If stuck for ten minutes, walk away and return; fresh eyes beat brute force.

What counts as done

Every cell is filled and correct, confirmed by the app's 'solved' indicator or by checking against the printed answer key.