I have a friend who refuses to touch a crossword puzzle. I tried to hand him the “Easy Monday” puzzle from the newspaper once, and he recoiled like I was handing him a live grenade. “I’m not smart enough for that,” he said. “I don’t know who the Prime Minister of Belgium was in 1954.”
Here is the secret that the “Crossword Elites” don’t want you to know: Crosswords are not trivia tests. They are logic puzzles disguised as trivia tests.
Solving an easy crossword isn’t about knowing everything. It’s about knowing how the constructor thinks. It’s about recognizing patterns. It’s about cheating (legally).
If you stare at a grid and feel your brain turning to mush, you are approaching it wrong. You are trying to solve it like a test Question 1, then Question 2, then Question 3. Stop that. Here is how to speed-run an easy puzzle and look like a genius in front of your friends.
1. The “S” Strategy (The Free Real Estate)
This is the first thing I do when I open a grid. I don’t even look at the clues yet. I look for the Plurals.
Scan the clues.
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“Types of flowers”
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“Winter months”
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“Baseball players”
If the clue is plural, the answer is (almost always) plural. Which means the answer ends in S. Go through the grid and write an S at the end of every plural answer.
Why? Because now you have just filled in 10% of the grid without knowing a single answer. Those “S”s are anchors. They give you the last letter for the crossing words. Suddenly, that impossible Down clue has a free letter at the bottom, and your brain can solve it.
2. The “Fill-in-the-Blank” Hunt
The hardest clues are the vague ones.
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Clue: “Walk.” (Is it STEP? TROD? PACE? HIKE? It could be anything).
The easiest clues are the Fill-in-the-Blanks.
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Clue: “Salt and ____”
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Clue: “____ of the beholder”
These require zero brainpower. Your brain completes the phrase automatically. PEPPER. EYE. Scan the list specifically for these blanks first. Fill them all in. They are the “easy mode” anchors that open up the rest of the board. Ignore the vague stuff until you have these locked down.
3. Memorize the “Crossword Glue” (The 3-Letter Words)
Constructors have a problem. They have to fit big, cool words into a grid, but that leaves awkward little 3-letter gaps they have to fill. They fill these gaps with the same 10 words over and over again.
If you memorize these “Glue Words,” you can solve 20% of any easy puzzle instantly:
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ORE: Clued as “Mining find” or “Raw material.”
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ERA: Clued as “History chapter” or “Time period.”
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ALE: Clued as “Pub drink” or “IPA.”
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EVE: Clued as “Night before” or “Adam’s partner.”
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SPA: Clued as “Relaxing spot” or “Hot tub locale.”
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ALI: Clued as “Boxing legend” or “The Greatest.”
Seriously, if you see a 3-letter word clue about a “Poem,” it is ODE. If you see a 3-letter word about “Anger,” it is IRE. Write them down. Use pen. Be confident.
4. The “Check the Cross” Rule (Don’t Trust Yourself)
You think 1-Across is HOUSE. It fits. H-O-U-S-E. But before you write it, look at 1-Down. Does 1-Down start with an H?
If the clue for 1-Down is “Fruit that is yellow,” and you wrote HOUSE, you are in trouble. HANANA isn’t a fruit. This means your answer for 1-Across is wrong. (It was probably ABODE or SHACK).
This is why people get stuck. They write a wrong word in pen, and then nothing else fits, and they give up. Always check the crossing clue. If the intersection doesn’t make sense, don’t write the letter.
5. The “Bounce Around” Method
Our brains are weird. Sometimes you stare at a clue for 5 minutes and get nothing. Then you go do the dishes, come back, and the answer hits you instantly.
Do not go in order. If you don’t know 1-Across, skip it. Immediately. Read 2-Across. Don’t know it? Skip. Read 3-Across. “Oh, that’s CAT.” Write it.
Keep moving. Speed is your friend. The goal is to fill in the easy stuff to create a “skeleton” for the hard stuff. When you come back to 1-Across later, you will have the letters _ _ S T. Suddenly, the answer FAST becomes obvious. You didn’t get smarter; you just got more data.
The Tangent (Why is “Oreo” in every puzzle?)
(Have you noticed how often the cookie OREO appears in crosswords? It’s not because the puzzle makers are sponsored by Nabisco. It’s because OREO is 75% vowels (O-R-E-O). Constructors love vowels. They act like glue to hold the Consonant-heavy words together. So if you see a clue about a “Cookie” or a “Sandwich treat,” just write OREO. It’s always OREO. Unless it’s NILLA. But it’s usually OREO).
6. Don’t Be Afraid of “Cheating”
Let’s be real. You are doing this on a Tuesday morning to wake up your brain. You aren’t competing in the World Crossword Tournament.
If you are stuck on one corner… Look it up. Google it. “Who is the goddess of peace?” (It’s IRENE, by the way. Another vowel-heavy word constructors love).
Purists will scream at me for saying this. They say looking up answers defeats the point. I disagree. If you look it up, you learn it. Next time you see “Goddess of Peace,” you will remember “IRENE.” You are learning the language of the puzzle. That’s not cheating; that’s studying.
7. Use the “Rebus” (Rare but Possible)
Okay, this is for when you graduate from “Easy” to “Medium.” Sometimes, the answer doesn’t fit. The clue is “Mr. Musk” (4 letters). The answer is clearly ELON. But the grid only has 3 boxes.
What the hell? Sometimes, puzzles have a “Rebus” where you have to squeeze multiple letters into one box. Maybe the first box contains “EL”. Don’t worry about this for the ultra-easy puzzles (like USA Today or the Mini), but if you ever feel like the puzzle is lying to you, consider that you might need to cram two letters into one square.
Start with the Mondays. (In the crossword world, Monday is the easiest day. Saturday is the hardest. Sunday is just big, not necessarily hard).
Download an app, or grab a paper. Find the Plurals. Find the Fill-in-the-blanks. Write in OREO and ALE. And suddenly, that blank grid will look a lot less scary. You might even finish it before your coffee gets cold.
