"Need Crossword help in a hurry? If you can't find what you need on this page, JUST ASK ME I'll answer your question within 48 hours!"
Welcome to the Crossword Puzzle Help Line - it's a pretty big subject, but I'm hoping I've got your issue covered on this page...
Just below you'll find a list of the main crossword help categories I've identified through my visitors so far (things like crossword tools, online crossword puzzles, terminology, and so forth). Under each category I've provided links to more detailed information that should get you sorted.
If you can't find what you need in any of these categories, I'm more than happy to give you some personalized crossword help. Just ask your question in the space provided a little way down the page, and I'll do some homework for you, and publish the result on this page (typically within a couple of days).
I don't mind doing that, because usually I'm pretty interested in the answer myself ;-)
Crossword Help Tools
After much research and consulting (not to mention a lot of fun experimenting!) I've put together collections of the most useful and respected crossword tools around. Click on the relevant link to go to a page where I describe each tool and tell you how and where you can get it...
Crossword Solver Library - A bunch of high-powered tools for solving both American (Standard) and British (Cryptic) crossword puzzles
Crossword Maker Library - A collection of the best crossword construction tools in the industry
If you're here because you're having trouble following the lingo used in the crossword puzzle industry - by solvers and constructors alike - feel free to browse this Crossword Glossary.
The Crossword Help Glossary is a regularly updated alphabetical list of all the main terms and phrases you're likely to hear if you were to eavesdrop on a group of cruciverbalists ;-)
Got a Question About Crosswords?
Ask it here, and I'll try to get it answered for you within 48 hours!
Even if you don't need any specific Crossword help, please feel free to browse the questions and responses given by others. Some questions have led to great discussions!
If you know a bit about crosswords, you might even find you can help somebody else out with their question - if so, just click the Comments links provided below each question.
The quickest way to get help solving a clue like this - rather than waiting for hours ...
Crossword Help Glossary
Below is an alphabetical crossword help index enabling you to quickly find what you need on every crossword-related topic I've been able to think of.
Quite a few of the entries have links to other pages on this site where I've written more extensive articles on various crossword help topics.
Even if you're not really looking for any particular type of crossword help, browsing this page can be a good way to find out new things about crossword puzzles.
Note: This help index is in its infancy at the moment, but eventually there'll be very few stones left unturned.
Ok, let's get started...
American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
A crossword tournament first held in 1978, and now the biggest crossword tournament in the world.
Cheater
A term used by crossword constructors to describe a black square that has been added to a grid to get the constructor out of trouble. Now that computers are available to help fill grids, cheaters are resorted to much less frequently.
Compiler
See crossword compiler.
Constructor
See crossword constructor.
Crossing
An intersection between an across and a down entry. In many modern American crossword puzzles, all squares in a crossword grid are crossings. This is because many crossword editors demand that every square must be part of both an across and a down entry so that the crossword solver has two chances at each square.
Crossword Compiler
Usually shortened to compiler, a person who creates crosswords. This term is used mainly in Britain, while the term crossword constructor is preferred in America.
Crossword Compiler
is also the name of a very popular crossword maker used by many major American newspapers and institutions to aid crossword construction.
Crossword Constructor
Usually shortened to constructor, a person who creates crosswords. This term is used mainly in America, while the term crossword compiler is preferred in Britain.
Crossword Editor
Usually shortened to editor, the person responsible for selecting crossword puzzles and preparing them for publication in a newspaper, periodical, puzzle book etc.
Although a crossword editor may also be a crossword constructor, the two functions are distinct.
Crossword Inker
A fictitious occupation, sometimes shortened to inker, created by animator Michael A. Charles in his hilarious parody of the crossword construction world,
Garson Hampfield, Crossword Inker.
Crosswordese
Highly obscure crossword answers that tend to appear frequently in crossword puzzles because of their handy letter patterns (such as vowel-consonant-vowel-vowel). Some common favorites familiar to regular crossword solvers include ETUI (a small sewing case), ANOA (an Indonesian wild ox), and YSER (a Belgian river).
Whereas Scrabble players delight in such esoterica, they are frowned upon, or at best tolerated, in the world of modern crossword construction, and so the term crosswordese usually has slightly negative connotations.
Cruciverbalist
A crossword enthusiast. Although it is a rather arcane word, serious crossword solvers are usually familiar with it.
Cryptic Crossword
A type of crossword puzzle, much more popular in Britain than in the United States, that relies extensively on word play (such as the use of anagrams, embedded words, homophones, and so forth) for its solution.
Although standard crossword puzzle clues also make use of word play quite often, cryptic clues require much more serious detective work. In a cryptic crossword, for example, the clue [GSEG] might have the answer SCRAMBLED EGGS.
Diagramless Crossword
A crossword puzzle in which all of the squares in the grid are white, and the solver must use the clues to deduce the locations of the black squares.
"...It's like parachuting into the desert without a compass and finding your way home, all at your kitchen table."
A common term for any answer to a clue entered in a crossword grid.
Fill
The general term for the letters making up the solution to a crossword puzzle. (Although often the term refers only to those letters other than the theme entries.)
Regular crossword solvers will often use phrases such as 'clean fill' (good) or a 'clunky fill' (bad) to describe the quality of a crossword puzzle.
Fill in the Blank
A variety of crossword clue in which the required entry is represented by a blank space (usually indicated by a solid line) in a phrase or expression. For example, [ ___ Christmas] might be used to clue the entry MERRY.
Fill in the blank clues are generally easier to solve than other clue styles, and often a good starting point in solving a crossword puzzle.
Grid
The arrangement of black and white squares making up a crossword puzzle.
Inker
See crossword inker.
Litzed
Used to describe puzzles that have been converted into the Across Lite format, as in... "Today's feature crossword puzzle hasn't been Litzed yet". At least, that is, according to the renowned crossword constructor Matt Gaffney. I haven't actually heard this expression used between real people yet ;-)
Partial
A fill in the blank style crossword clue in which the missing letters form part of a phrase, rather than the entire phrase. The clue [What ___ here?], for example, might have the answer HAVE WE.
Because partials do not usually make sense by themselves (if they did they wouldn't be clued as partials!) they are not considered to be particularly elegant and their use is usually limited to necessity.
Rebus
A crossword puzzle in which some of the squares are to be populated with a symbol representing more than one letter. The symbol '@', for example, could be used to represent the word AT so that the nine-letter word STATISTIC would appear as the eight-letter entry ST@ISTIC.
Repeater
An entry that turns up very frequently in crossword puzzles. The reason for the frequency is that the vowel-consonant pattern of some words make them particularly 'grid-friendly'. Many repeaters are everyday words like AREA, while a smaller number are obscure words like ETUI. Obscure repeaters are often referred to as crosswordese.
Slot
Any sequence of squares in a crossword grid corresponding to an entry. In other words, an entry is the sequence of letters populating a slot.
This terminology is useful when you want to talk about the grid itself, rather than the letters that will eventually fill the grid.
Stack
A set of entries of the same length appearing as neighbouring (parallel) entries in a crossword grid.
Symmetry
A crossword grid is said to have symmetry if the pattern of black and white squares remains unchanged when the grid is rotated through a certain angle.
Many crossword editors insist on some type of symmetry. The New York Times, for example, specifies that its crosswords must always have 180 degree symmetry, which means that the grid pattern remains unchanged when the crossword is turned upside down.
Syndicated Crossword
A crossword which appears in more than one publication. It is not uncommon for crossword puzzles to be syndicated to dozens of newspapers, with each newspaper paying the original crossword owner for the right to republish the puzzle.
Theme Crossword
A crossword in which several (usually longer) entries are related together in a way hinted at in the title of the crossword.
Although themes are sometimes transparent (such as 'Dog Breeds'), themes are usually more subtle, requiring some clever wordplay to reveal the intended meaning.
Theme Entry
In a theme crossword, the theme entries are the ones related together in a manner hinted at in the crossword's title. Usually the theme entries are the longest entries in the puzzle.
Themeless Crossword
Any crossword puzzle that doesn't have a theme (usually indicated by the absence of a title for the puzzle).
Unch
A commonly used abbreviation for unchecked square.
Unchecked Square
Any square in a crossword grid that is constrained by only one clue (either across or down, but not both).
Many crossword editors, particularly in America, do not allow unchecked squares, since they do not give the solver a second chance at a square if they can't solve one of the clues. This practice also reduces the likelihood of a crossword having more than one valid solution.
Word Count
The total number of entries in a crossword puzzle. This is important because many crossword editors specify rules about the word count.
Word Cross
The original name for the word puzzle that eventually became known as the Crossword.
Wordplay
An imprecise term referring to clues that require some kind of play on words for their solution, rather than a straightforward definition.
In American-style crossword puzzles a clue is often followed by a question mark to signify that wordplay is lurking. In British-style cryptic crosswords, no such indicator is necessary since every single clue would need to be so marked!
As an example of wordplay in action, Peter Gordon, a renowned American constructor, once created the brilliant clue [Bolt with no threads?] for the entry STREAK, making use of the synonyms 'bolt' for 'run' and 'threads' for 'clothes'.
X
No, it isn't a typo. I've included the single letter X just to remind you that cruciverbalists often use it to denote the word CROSS, most often in the word XWORDS. It's obvious once you've been told, but things like that can look a bit confusing when you're new.
I'm constantly adding crossword help entries to this index, so you might like to revisit this page from time to time.
If you were looking for specific crossword help that wasn't mentioned here,
please let me know
and I'll try to put together an entry for you.
. I haven't actually heard this expression used between real people yet ;-)
