LA Times Crossword Help
Stuck on a clue? Put in the letters you already have and the solver will tell you what fits. It works on any newspaper’s crossword.
We don’t print their answers
Plenty of sites republish the LA Times grid and its solutions every morning. We don’t. The puzzle belongs to its publisher, nobody has given us permission to reprint it, and the fact that others do is not a reason.
What is ours, we publish in full: there is a solution page for every puzzle on this site, and a new crossword every day if you would rather solve one than look one up.
How the week works
The LA Times crossword gets harder as the week goes on. Monday is deliberately gentle, Tuesday through Thursday build, and Friday and Saturday are where the wordplay bites. Sunday is a larger grid rather than a harder one — roughly Thursday difficulty, with more of it.
If a Monday is fighting you, it is worth checking a crossing entry rather than staring at the clue: early-week grids are forgiving precisely because the crossings are fair.
The short words that fill grids
Every white square in a crossword belongs to two entries at once, so a constructor is forever reaching for short, vowel-rich words that join easily to whatever is around them. The result is that a small set of answers turns up far more than ordinary usage would explain.
These are counted from the 730 grids on this site rather than from the LA Times — we cannot measure theirs — but the pressure is the same on any constructor, and the names on the list will look familiar to anyone who solves regularly.
- SPAA fashionable hotel usually in a resort area130
- ENEThe compass point midway between northeast and east129
- ETAThe 7th letter of the Greek alphabet116
- SEEDeem to be89
- ALAA wing of an insect87
- NEEUsed to indicate the maiden or family name of a married woman82
- YESAn affirmative81
- ONEA single person or thing78
- ODEA lyric poem with complex stanza forms73
- MESA state in New England73
- PSIA unit of pressure72
- ATETake in solid food72
- ANIBlack tropical American cuckoo71
- IREBelligerence aroused by a real or supposed wrong71
- ATS100 at equal 1 kip in Laos70
- PESThe 17th letter of the Hebrew alphabet69
- TEDA tough youth of 1950's and 1960's wearing Edwardian style clothes68
- EGOThe conscious mind66
- AREAA subject of study65
- ENDA final state65
- ARIAAn elaborate song for solo voice65
- TEEThe starting place for each hole on a golf course64
- SETA unit of play in tennis or squash64
Questions
- Do you publish the LA Times crossword answers?
- No. We publish answers to our own puzzles, and there is a full solution page for every one of them. The LA Times crossword belongs to its publisher, and reprinting their clues and answers each day is not something we have asked for or been given permission to do.
- Then how does this help me finish today's?
- Enter the letters you already have from the crossing entries — C?O??W??D and so on — and the solver lists every word that fits, commonest first. If you have no letters at all, type a distinctive word from the clue instead. It works for any newspaper's crossword, not just this one.
- Which day of the LA Times crossword is hardest?
- It gets harder through the week. Monday is the gentlest, Tuesday to Thursday build steadily, and Friday and Saturday are the tests. Sunday is a bigger grid rather than a harder one — usually around Thursday difficulty with more of it.
- Why do the same short words keep appearing?
- Because a dense grid needs them. Every white square in a crossword belongs to both an across and a down entry, so a constructor filling one reaches constantly for short, vowel-rich words that join easily to their neighbours. That is why ETA, ALA, NEE and ENE turn up far more often than their everyday use would suggest.
- Where can I play the LA Times crossword?
- On the Los Angeles Times website and in their apps, which is where it should be played — the puzzle is theirs and that is what funds it.