cruciverbalist

[kroo-suh-vur-buh-list]

noun

1. a designer or aficionado of crossword puzzles.

cruciverbalist

/ ˌkruːsɪˈvɜːbəlɪst /

noun

1. a crossword puzzle enthusiast

Word History and Origins

Origin of cruciverbalist¹

First recorded in 1975–80; from Latin cruci- + verbalist; cross

Word History and Origins

Origin of cruciverbalist¹

C20: from Latin crux cross + verbum word

Example Sentences

There is no doubt that Evan Birnholz is a brilliant professional cruciverbalist, who deserves a more focused and sophisticated audience with respect to crossword puzzles.

Read more on Washington Post

If doing the Saturday crossword in pen seems like a magic trick, prepare yourself for David Kwong, a conjurer and a cruciverbalist.

Read more on New York Times

“My mom. Her name is Siobhan, and she’s a cruciverbalist.”

Read more on Literature

As she put it at the 2004 conference, she became a translator “by pure accident,” although her interest in literature began early, in a bookish household where her mother was a homemaker, her father was a cruciverbalist who devised puzzles for the Times of London, and her grandfather was a deputy editor of the Observer newspaper who steered her toward his Loeb collection of Greek and Latin classics.

Read more on Washington Post

Mrs. Gordon was The Times’s oldest cruciverbalist, as those who ply her trade are known, and its longest-serving.

Read more on New York Times