crossword
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of crossword
First recorded in 1910–15
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Start a new crossword streak: What’s an 11-letter word for a cheesy polyester ’fit?
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026
“Whereas if you only have a tiny fragment, it’s like doing a crossword puzzle. You have to argue, to research, and to reconstruct the entire object.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
Knight arrived at the Times games division in 2020 to find Spelling Bee and the traditional crossword as the main app attractions.
From Barron's ● May 16, 2026
Much like Wordle, the player gets to solve one cryptic crossword clue a day, the game becomes progressively harder as the week goes on.
From BBC ● Mar. 30, 2026
Englishmen hate many things, but no one is despised more than the man who sits by you on the morning train and solves your crossword puzzle.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Under the blankets, a few plastic bottles filled with hot water and power banks for her phone, on which she played crosswords.
From Barron's ● Jan. 28, 2026
Stephen Sondheim was so good at crosswords that he considered it cheating to use a pencil—or a pen.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025
Sheila chose to learn to do puzzles and crosswords while one of the French patients used them to help navigate the Paris Metro -- both tasks being more complex than reading alone.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 20, 2025
For many years it has been suggested by some that solving puzzles, whether Sudoku or crosswords, can have a hand in slowing cognitive decline or dementia.
From BBC ● Dec. 25, 2024
I've been told that crosswords puzzles help fight the advance of Alzheimer's Disease, but that had nothing to do with my initiation.
From "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
