WSJ (Contest) Grid: 10 minutes; Meta: 5 more 
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Matt Gaffney’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Sent Tens” — Conrad’s writeup
This week we’re look for a relevant six-letter word. The title clued me in pretty quickly: Sent Tens is an anagram. In my time solving metas I have learned that you should never randomly anagram potential solutions unless prompted somehow: that is a doomed rabbit hole. But Matt gave us a strong anagram hint in the title: there’s our prompt.
WSJ Contest – 10.12.2025
JOY’s clue tipped me off: Emotion that defeats negativism. That’s an odd clue for a simple grid entry. I was off the the races. There were six long theme ten-letter entries, each an anagram of a ten-letter word in another grid entry’s clue:
- JOY: Emotion that defeats negativism -> TIMESAVING
- UNDO: Negate, as things that exhibit transience -> NECTARINES
- MARY: Shelley known for gloominess -> NEOLOGISMS
- BOARD: Stand against one to straighten your posture -> SHATTERING
- LEARN: Discover something enduringly useful, say -> UNDERLYING
- EMERIL: Chef known for slathering his dishes -> EARTHLINGS
The mapped grid entries spell our contest solution JUMBLE. Great puzzle by Matt! Very meta-relevant title: anagram, and ten was used twice (grid and clue words). Plus a fitting answer. Solvers: please share your thoughts.
Great puzzle! Very fun !!! Great job Matt!
Impressive concept and construction. I thought SENT might mean that. But I got hung up on SENT TENS meaning SENTENCE. And forgot about the anagrams. Bravo Conrad!
I too got stuck seeing SENT TENS only as a pun on “sentence.”
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 4.5 stars
Me three!!
Then I hit another rabbit hole with NECTARINES (“neck”), NEOLOGISMS (“knee”) and EARTHLINGS (starts with “ear” but hmm… doesn’t sound like “ear”).
The only way to improve this puzzle is if one square in the grid for each 10-letter entry was circled, and the 6 circled letters after anagramming had spelled JUMBLE.
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 5 stars
Really clever, especially since “sent” is used in cryptic crosswords to signal an anagram.
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 5 stars
Everyone who did the anagrams without resorting to online help, raise your hands…anyone? Is this thing on? Enjoyed this one despite it requiring (for me, anyway) a foray into googland (a small pet peeve), and thought it remarkable that the anagram pairs were each unique. Yet another feat of contruction from Matt, bravo.
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 5 stars
Excellent puzzle Matt! Very fun indeed! 10 letter anagrams? Who’d have thunk?
Nectarines was the first one I got with google help of course.
After that I just looked for clues with a 10-letter word. Except for straighten they were not hard to spot.
Had no idea! Could have spent a lifetime. This puzzle should be given to prisoners serving life sentences.
Me too
Solved all the anagrams on my own. No googling required!
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 5 stars
Same here!