Hard Crossword
Hard Crossword
Hard Crossword is the difficult end of the daily grid. Same rules as any crossword, longer answers, thinner crossings and clues that do more work.
What makes a crossword hard is rarely obscure vocabulary. It is misdirection: a clue that reads as one part of speech and answers as another, a word doing double duty, a definition hidden at the end of a phrase that looked like context. The answers are usually ordinary words.
If this is a step too far, Easy Crossword is the same idea with the misdirection turned down, and there are more in crossword.
How to play Hard Crossword
- Click a square to select an entry, and click again to switch between across and down.
- Type your answer into the highlighted squares.
- Crossing letters are shared, so every across answer constrains the downs it touches.
- Fill the grid correctly to finish.
Reading a hard clue
The first job with any clue is to find the definition, which sits at one end of it, at the start or at the finish, never in the middle. Everything else is the machinery.
Once the definition is isolated, the rest of the clue is telling you how to build the word rather than what it means, and the two halves stop fighting each other.
Tips and strategy
Order of attack
- Read every clue once without writing anything, and note the ones you are certain of.
- Enter the certainties, ignoring how few they are.
- Work outward from the letters you now have, because a crossing letter cuts the field of candidates enormously.
- Come back to the hard clues last, when three of their squares are already filled.
Signals in the wording
- A question mark at the end usually marks a pun or a stretched definition.
- Abbreviations in the clue, or words like briefly and shortly, ask for an abbreviated answer.
- A plural definition wants a plural answer, and the S at the end is often a free crossing letter.
- Tense in the clue matches tense in the answer. A clue in the past tense is telling you the answer ends in ED far more often than solvers use.
When you are stuck
- Say the clue out loud with the emphasis in a different place. Misdirection usually lives in how you stressed it.
- Ask whether an ordinary word is being used in an unusual sense. Bank, spring, light and left all mean at least three things.
- Leave it. Come back after filling something else and the crossings will have done most of the work.
What separates good solvers
Not vocabulary, but willingness to write nothing. Filling a square with a plausible guess feels like progress and quietly ruins the crossings around it, and the cost only becomes visible twenty minutes later.
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Frequently asked questions
How is Hard Crossword different from the easier ones?
The answers are longer, there are fewer crossing letters to help, and the clues rely more on misdirection than on difficult vocabulary.
Is there a new puzzle every day?
Yes, a fresh grid each day, so there is always one waiting.
Where is the definition in a crossword clue?
At one end of the clue, either the start or the finish, never in the middle. Isolating it first makes the rest of the clue readable as instructions.
What should I do when I am stuck?
Stop guessing and fill in something else. A wrong letter entered on a hunch damages every crossing answer, while three real crossing letters usually solve the hard clue for you.
Is it free?
Yes. Free in the browser, no download and no sign up.