WSJ Crossword August 5 2024 Answers (8/5/24) - Try Hard Guides (2024)

FAQs

What is the hardest day for the NYT crossword? ›

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 a "Thursday-plus" in difficulty.

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 most famous Schrödinger puzzle, and maybe the most famous crossword puzzle in American history, was published on the morning of Election Day in 1996. The clue for the two central entries read “Lead story in tomorrow's newspaper (!).” A bold clue indeed!

The Wall Street Journal Crossword Contest puzzles are just like normal crosswords, but with one big difference: somewhere in each puzzle there's a secret word or phrase hiding, and you've got to figure out where and what it is.

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.

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. They're just bigger.

“Anag” is an abbreviation for the word anagram, which means a word, phrase or a sentence formed from another by rearranging its letters arbitrarily. Art is an anag for the word rat. C.H.

What do circles in the NYT Crossword mean? Circles in a crossword highlight a theme for the puzzle. They either spell out what the theme is, words or letters related to the theme, and/or are in a pattern illustrating that theme. They provide extra clues to how each needs to be filled out.

There is a number or numbers after the clue. This indicates the shape of the answer. A simple (7) will just indicate a seven‐letter word; (3,4) will indicate a two‐word phrase ‐ e.g. Put Down; (3‐4) indicates a hyphenated word or phrase ‐ e.g. Oil‐rigs.

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. They're just bigger.

What newspaper has the best crossword puzzles? ›

1. The New York Times Crossword. Renowned for its sophistication and wordplay, The New York Times Crossword is arguably the gold standard in the world of puzzles. Under the editorship of Will Shortz since 1993, these crosswords are known for their clever themes, challenging clues, and cultural relevance.

The daily puzzles are arranged in graded difficulty from Monday (easiest) through Saturday (hardest). The Sunday puzzle, which is larger—typically 21x21, vs 15x15 for the daily—is said to have a difficulty equivalent to about Thursday.

You can play the New York Times Crossword puzzle at nytimes.com/games, in the The New York Times Games app (iOS and Android), and in the Play tab of the New York Times News app.

The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases that cross each other, by solving clues in the Across and Down columns which lead to the answers. The New York Times Crossword increases in difficulty from Monday to Saturday.

Our difficulty scale increases through the week, with the easiest puzzles on Monday and hardest on Saturday. Sunday puzzles should reflect midweek difficulty levels. Clues should be fresh, colorful and precise. Try to be original, and inject humor where possible.

About LA Times Crossword

Edited by Patti Varol, the LA Times Crossword puzzle is full of music, TV, and film references. This typically themeless crossword puzzle gets harder as the week goes on.

Feyer describes himself as “a mild-mannered musician who developed an addiction to crosswords,” and he posts his solving times every day. There is, he says, a friendly competition among top-ranked solvers. For a Monday puzzle in The New York Times, his fastest time by computer was 1 minute, 22 seconds.