Sunday, May 17, 2026

LAT 7:44 (Kyle) [2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 15:31 (Nate) [2.52 avg; 23 ratings] rate it
USA Today untimed (ZEB) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Universal (Sunday) 8:28 (Jim P) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Universal 4:14 (Adam S) [2.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
WaPo 4:16 (Matt G) [3.10 avg; 5 ratings] rate it

Derrick Niederman’s New York Times crossword, “Double Meanings” — Nate’s write-up

05.17.2026 Sunday New York Times Crossword Puzzle

22A: DRAWING BOARD [Lottery commission?]
24A: PEN NAMES [Prison terms?]
29A: RAIN DELAY [Shower stall?]
38A: CARPALS [Automates?]
48A: WARRANT [Battle cry?]
65A: CHICKEN SANDWICH [Yellow submarine?]
87A: HOTFOOT [Stolen base?]
94A: KINSHIP [Blood vessel?]
102A: CAN OPENER [Fire starter?]
114A: MATTRESS [Padlock?]
116A: TRUST BUSTERS [Confidence men?]

To understand the theme, split each theme entry’s clue into two parts. Find a (sometimes loose) synonym of each half and then put those synonyms back together to get another recognizable word or phrase. For example, in [Automates?], Auto is a synonym of “car” and mates is a synonym of “pals.” Put those together and you get CARPALS. Some of these felt quite inspired, like [Rain delay?] for SHOWER STALL and [Yellow submarine?] for CHICKEN SANDWICH, but “names” for terms and “foot” for base in other themers felt too loose for my liking. Also, never have I ever heard of TRUST BUSTERS (Wiki definition here), so that was a tougher one for me – TIL!

If you want to understand this theme even better and see some truly extraordinary examples of what Adam Aaronson and Bob Weisz have recently dubbed “double-doubles” (or what Ricki Heicklen has previously called “unparalleled misalignments”), check out Adam’s legendary “Square Theory” blog post.

Okay, theme aside – oof! For whatever reason, I was not on this puzzle’s wavelength, so this puzzle took me much longer to solve than normal. Even an entry that should have been super millennial coded for me, like [How mashed avocado might be served] had me stalling a bit. Sure, avocado toast is avocado served OVER TOAST, but is that entry a standalone phrase? Perhaps relatedly, this constructor’s first of 16 NYT puzzles (all Sundays) was published in 1983, just a few months before I was born(!). (Serious kudos to this puzzlemaker’s longevity!) In retrospect, most of the grid feels gettable, aside from entries like KITED, BRUIN, and WHUP that were clued in a way that felt foreign to me. I bet others will be totally on his wavelength, though, and I’m pumped that this should be a solid and enjoyable solve for them!

What did you think of today’s puzzle? Let us know in the comments – and have a great weekend!

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Play Ball” — Matthew’s write-up

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Play Ball” solution, 5/17/2026

A central entry is our revealer this week: THEATER IN THE ROUND highlights four plays with six-letter titles who appear in the grid in ring-shaped arrangements of circled letters. Each work’s playwright also appears in the grid:

• 22a SARTRE points to NO EXIT in the lower right,
• 116a August WILSON and FENCES in the lower left,
• 11d Oscar WILDE and SALOME in the upper left, and
• 103d Neil SIMON and RUMORS in the upper right, 

The letters surrounded by each play title spell THE GLOBE, a particular venue where you may find THEATER IN THE ROUND. A nice multi-layer payoff, there, made all the more impressive as I realize the four playwrights are in symmetrical positions in the grid. 

Unfortunately for this theme, I paid very little attention to it while solving. Fortunately for me, Evan made the most of an atypical grid pattern, and I got a ton of highlights from the fill and cluing:

TAB as a [Record of pitchers?] refers to beer pitchers on a bar tab. A pretty good challenge to start off right at 1a // The pastries RISSOLES at 23a are completely new to me. Google tells me that they exist in a number of cuisines // I didn’t know the song “If ELMO Had Teeth,” but you can bet I’ve looked it up now // The baseballing ALOU family doesn’t show up nearly as much in puzzles anymore, so much so that Evan gave us “Felipe” in the clue after already pinning the four-letter name to baseball // It’s a bit corny and has probably done before, but I got a real chuckle out of [How I assume a horse would always vote if it were a congresshorse] NAY // I love the misdirection in [Turn signals?] for ODORS – once food has turned/spoiled, it smells 

Cheers!

Matt Revis’s LA Times crossword “SEE ZEE SIGHTS!” – Kyle’s write-up

LA Times solution grid “SEE ZEE SIGHTS!” – Matt Revis – Sunday 05/17/2026

Your blogger is recovering from a bout of illness, so this may be short, but let’s see where it goes.

Thanks to Matt Revis for today’s LAT crossword. It’s a solid offering, based on a sound-addition theme:

• 23A [Place to learn about chili peppers?] SPICY MUSEUM (spy). Fun fact: the current Guinness world record for hottest chili pepper ever cultivated is Pepper X, which surpassed the Carolina Reaper in 2023.
• 32A [Shearing event held under the big top?] FLEECY CIRCUS (flea)
• 47A [Root for a Calgary franchise?] FANCY THE FLAMES (fan). Sadly for Flames fans, the team missed out on the Stanley Cup playoffs this year. Did you know that University of Illinois Chicago’s sports teams are also the Flames?
• 63A [Event for people who won’t drink Coca-Cola?] PEPSI RALLY (pep)
• 66A [“Gangster Malone takes the bait!”?] BUGSY BITES (bug)
• 83A [Coffee table item in a dollhouse?] TEENSY MAGAZINE (teen).
• 95A [Where it’s hard to keep a secret?] NOSY MAN’S LAND (no)
• 109A [“Yes, I’ll invest in beachfront property in Arizona!”?] PATSY ANSWER (pat)

There is one nit I have to pick: with no in-grid revealer, the title has to do that job, and here I’m not really sure the title lands the punchline. When I opened the puzzle and read the title, my first thought was that we were going with some kind of letter-change theme involving C and Z. I figured out the sound change with FLEECY CIRCUS, but then I thought “Museum…circus…so we’re doing tourist spots to see the sights”. That immediately got challenged by FANCY THE FLAMES and PEPSI RALLY and ultimately discarded with BUGSY BITES. So in the end, we have six themers with an added see sound, and two with an added zee sound. I’m just left thinking there could be a more apt revealer that doesn’t get its intent muddled by the chosen set of themers.

I won’t go through a full recount of my highlights from the fill and clues, though I want to remark on the lovely bonus long entries in MOONSTONE, MAELSTROM, BENCH PRESS, “LET IT SLIDE” (though maybe it doesn’t quite sound natural to me as a conversational phrase, versus “let it go”), TOY STORE, and “WHY WORRY?”

Will Pfadenhauer’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Pardon My French”—Jim P’s review

Theme answers come in pairs. In the top half of the grid are phrases that hint at the addition of words to other entries. In the bottom half of the grid are those other entries which are comprised of familiar phrases plus the added words hinted at above—except said words are in French (hence the title).

Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Pardon My French” · Will Pfadenhauer · 5.17.26

• 22a [“Aladdin” song, or a hint to the inserted word in 121-Across] A WHOLE NEW WORLD. The French word for “world” (“monde”) is added to “commotion” to get 121a [Getting sent back from the MLB to a Triple-A team, e.g.?] COMMON DEMOTION.
• 32a [Certain holiday gift, or a hint to the inserted word in 107-Across] CHRISTMAS BONUS. The French “Noel” is added to “doctorates” to get 107a [Portrayal of a Bond villain receives rave reviews?] DOCTOR NO ELATES.
• 43a [Offering a positive recommendation, or a hint to the inserted word in 95-Across] PUTTING IN A GOOD WORD. The French “bon” is added to “take the shine off” to get 95a [Remove a classroom skeleton’s tibia?] TAKE THE SHINBONE OFF.
• 58a [Brownie mix instruction, or a hint to the inserted word in 82-Across] JUST ADD WATER. The French “eau” is added to “lamb roast” to get 82a [Insult comedy event at the Packers’ stadium?] LAMBEAU ROAST.

Pretty ambitious theme with a lot of things going on. Mostly I ignored it and that decision probably improved my solve time. But afterwards, I appreciated the different layers of the theme, and overall I’m impressed. Yes, the wacky phrases in the bottom half got a little goofy, but the theme constraints are quite tight, and getting eight theme phrases to fit symmetrically in a grid is not easy. So kudos to our constructor for pulling that off.

I’m also appreciative of the theme answer layout with the first theme answer corresponding to the last one, the second one corresponding to the penultimate one, and so on. There’s nothing thematic about the layout, but it’s an elegant touch that makes it just a bit easier for the solver to find the cross-referenced entry.

Finally, not only are the theme answers symmetrical, the entire grid is, which I appreciate. And even with full grid symmetry, we still can enjoy some nice long fill along the way like KER-PLOP, GAP WEDGE, ROUTE ONE, OUTLOOK, PARKOUR, and OCEANUS.

Clue of note: 25a. [Actress/activist Marilyn]. MONROE. I honestly didn’t know about her activism. So sad that her life was cut short.

Overall, an impressive theme and execution. Four stars.

Jake Halperin’s USA Today Crossword “Wow!” – Zachary Edward-Brown’s write-up

Jake Halperin’s USA Today Crossword “Wow!” – 5/17/26

I really liked today’s theme. Here it is:

20A – [Do the impossible, idiomatically] = WALK ON WATER
40A – [MMORPG with Alliance and Horde factions] = WORLD OF WARCRAFT
57A – [Dated] = WENT OUT WITH

The title is WOW, so each themer starts with the letters W, O, and W. I like the consistency – each themer is three words exactly, and I’m impressed by the set that was chosen. I’m not sure how many options there are that fit the W-O-W- pattern, but I imagine there aren’t that many, making the set tight. The theme set itself is very fun, particularly the central spanner, even though I can barely make sense of the clue. After googling, WORLD OF WARCRAFT is a popular video game – specifically, a “Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game” or MMORPG. I recognized RPG enough to infer the “warcraft” part of the answer when solving.

The grid itself is very impressively built. Eight answers of eight or more letters that are non-themed: OBSCENITY, SKIPS TOWN, DETOURED, ANCESTOR, TAILOR–MADE, DIRTY TRICK, ODOMETER, and CRYSTALS. That’s quite a lot of non-theme variety! Granted, not all of it is spectacular. It’s mostly one-word answers, but regardless I like the effort to keep things interesting beyond the theme. I’ll also say, I really liked the cluing in today’s puzzle. Well done!

A few notes:

• 14A [Currency featuring the Sri Lanka hanging parrot] RUPEE Fun, new, inferable. Just how I like clues to be on an easier puzzle!
• 68A [Dog parent’s “umbilical cord”] LEASH Never had a dog, so never heard of this. It makes sense though, and I definitely appreciate the fun, new clue, teaching me new things!
• 4D [Body parts that might be perfumed] NECKS Saw “body parts”, five letters and starting with “N”, and put in NOSES without reading the rest of the clue. Whoops! It’s a fun clue though, so maybe I should have read it more carefully.
• 8D [#OOTD app] INSTA OOTD = Outfit of the Day. It also doubles as a clever indicator that we have the shortened version INSTA, as opposed to the longer INSTAGRAM.
• 25D [Milk and its ilk] DAIRY Nice rhyme.
• 49D [“Brain” primarily made of silicon (Abbr.)] CPU The brain of the computer. Very fun clue!
• 60D [Country whose national tree is the cypress] IRAN Nice bit of trivia. Apparently Bhutan also has the cypress as their national tree, although it is a different kind of cypress.
• 40A [MMORPG with Alliance and Horde factions] WORLD OF WARCRAFT Favorite clue in the puzzle! I already mentioned how I like how this answer seems inscrutable, but is inferable through the “RPG” part of “MMORPG.” The clue was fun, the answer was fun and new, I learned something, and it made me feel smart figuring it out! Perfect!

4.75 stars

CJ Tan’s Universal Crossword “Themeless Sunday 184” – Adam S’s write-up

CJ Tan’s Universal “Themeless Sunday 184” – 5/17/26

Gonna be a quick one today since this is a crazy weekend. To be honest, this puzzle, although well-made and smoothly filled, wasn’t really speaking to me. I very much liked STAYCATION (for the second time this month!), THERE’S TIME, and SECRET MENU. But too much of the long stuff was just not on my wavelength. I don’t think I could name a single ACID TRANCE group or artist, and am not a FACIAL PEEL sort of person. I’m sure those entries sparked joy for others, so that’s a me thing.

A few of the other long entries, like RAN ERRANDS [Picked up groceries, got gas, etc.] and CONCERT TEE [Top with a list of dates and cities], felt they needed some more elevation from their clues to shine, in the way that STATIC CLING was nicely elevated by [Scientific explanation for one’s attachment issues?]

I hope it spoke to you more than it did to me (and wouldn’t surprise me to hear that it did).

A few notes:

• Appropriately, for a puzzle from a CJ, this grid was brought to you by the letter C. 11 of them in the grid, including three themers with two of them.
• 23A SILENT DISCO [Here, you shut up and dance!] I appreciated the effort to create an interesting clue here, but it didn’t quite land. The more you have to modify the surface phrase in a question mark or an exclamation point clue, the harder it is to pull off. And the addition of “Here, you…” to the front of the surface phrase felt a little distracting.
• 47A RATS [Bad singers?]. Nice!
• 31D TESSA [“Hedda” actress Thompson] Do you think Tessa Thompson knows how huge she is in the Crossworld?
• 43D ARCTICA [Ancient continent, or the last seven letters of a current continent]. I was grateful for the second half of the clue, as the first half was a complete unknown.