Most crossword clues are plain definitions, but a handful of signals change how you should read the rest. Learn these and a surprising number of stuck squares open up. The examples below are made up for this page, so none of them spoil a real puzzle.
Abbreviations: "for short," "Abbr." and shortened clues
When a clue says "for short," "briefly" or "Abbr.," the answer is a shortened form. A made-up clue such as "Mountain bike, for short" wants MTB, not the full phrase. Check the letter count first: if the grid has three squares, the abbreviation fits and the full phrase does not.
The signal can also show up inside the clue. If the clue itself is abbreviated ("Dept. head" or "Org. for teachers"), the answer is usually abbreviated too. Treat the clue and the answer as a matching pair: same style in, same style out.
One trap is a clue that gives you a short form and asks for the long one, or the reverse. Read it twice and decide which direction the clue is going before you count squares.
Question marks: expect a second meaning
A question mark means the clue is not literal. It might be a pun, a joke or a plain word used in an unexpected sense. A made-up clue like "Bank worker?" could point to a river rather than a teller, and "Drawn out?" could point to a pencil sketch or a long speech. A good routine is to write down the obvious reading, then ask what else each word can mean. The right answer is usually the one that makes you groan a little.
- Do not trust the first thing that comes to mind. It is the decoy.
- Check the length and any crossing letters against each reading.
- If the clue is still stubborn, leave it until its crossings fill in.
Fill-in-the-blank: the friendliest clues
A blank (shown as a long dash or a row of lines) asks you to complete a phrase, title or saying. A made-up clue like "___ and cheese" has one very likely answer. These are the best way into a corner of the grid, because the letters you place give you crossings for the harder clues around them.
Watch for two things. The blank can sit at the start, the middle or the end of the phrase. And the answer can be several words run together with no spaces, so count squares rather than words.
Match tense and number
The answer has the same form as the clue word. A clue ending in -ing wants an -ing answer, a past-tense clue wants a past-tense answer, and a plural clue wants a plural, which often means the answer ends in S. A clue in quotation marks is something a person might say, so the answer is often a spoken phrase or exclamation. This rule is easy to forget, and it rules out wrong answers faster than almost anything else.
Other signals worth knowing
- "E.g." or "for example": the clue gives an example, and the answer names the group.
- "Var.": the answer is a less common spelling.
- A foreign word in the clue: the answer is in that language, or is a word borrowed from it.
- An asterisk: a themed answer. A "revealer" clue elsewhere explains the theme.
- Words in the clue rarely repeat in the answer. If the clue says "cat," the answer is unlikely to contain CAT.
A quick routine for a tricky clue
- Read the end of the clue first for a question mark, "for short" or "Abbr."
- Note the tense and number, plus the length.
- Fill in any crossings you already have, even one letter.
- Try the second meaning of the key word.
- If nothing fits, move on. Another answer will give you a letter.
You can see these signals on real puzzles. Our crossword clue lookup adds a short "How to read this clue" note to a clue page whenever the wording uses one of them, and the answer stays hidden until you tap it. For wider habits, see how to get better at the NYT Crossword and how to solve the Mini faster. To see which answers come up again and again, check the most common NYT crossword answers, and for what changes from Monday to Saturday, read NYT Crossword difficulty by day.