Puzzlepedia™ Grid Puzzles
Crossword
A word puzzle played in a grid of black and white squares, with clues.
A crossword is a word puzzle that takes place in a square grid of white and black squares. Some of the white squares have numbers in them that match a series of clues that is also provided. The goal is to use the clues to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases. The shaded squares are used to separate the words or phrases from each other. Words go vertically and horizontally, so you can use the solutions from one set of clues to help you solve the ones in the other direction.
Here is a sample puzzled called "Games, Old and New" that you can solve interactively on our website.
1) Tub
5) Rolling stone's lack
9) Cornershop "Brimful of ___"
10) Zone
11) Barrel of laughs
12) Drop
13) Addictive game
15) 1977 Steely Dan album
16) Pick-up sticks piece
22) Shrek's species
23) Tiny little bit
24) Large furry mammal
25) Shade trees
26) Tax IDs
27) Informal get-together (abbr)
DOWN
1) Puke
2) Largest continent
3) God of thunder
4) Milliner
5) Link to the mob
6) Face-to-face exam
7) Peddle
8) Peddle for less
14) MTV hosts
16) Apple cofounder
17) A long time
18) Type of berry
19) Part in a play
20) Money machines
21) Clean up
In the crossword puzzle above, look at the clue for 5 across, "Rolling stone's lack". This may remind you of the phrase, "A rolling stone gathers no moss". So, you would write the letters MOSS into the four squares starting at the 5 and going across. Now, you know the first letters for some of the down clues. Take a look at 6 down, "face-to-face exam" which we now know starts with the letter O. It can only be one thing, an "Oral exam". We already have the O, so write in the letters RAL below the 6 going downwards. Continue in this way, filling in words until you have the entire grid filled up.
There are different varieties of crosswords. If the puzzle doesn't have the black squares filled in ahead of time, and makes you figure out where the blocks need to be placed, this is called a Diagramless Crossword. Instead of numbered clues, you might instead be given all the words without numbers for where they go. This is called a Fill-In Crossword. A Crossnumbers puzzle is a crossword puzzle, but instead of words that you fill into the grid, you fill in numbers and the clues are usually mathematical expressions.
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