DELINT: activity that follows yesterday’s HERDING CATS. I speak from experience.
@Cat Lady Margaret I fell in love with Steve Martin when he mentioned in a stand up that he gave his cat a bath a few days ago, and still hasn't gotten all the hair off his tongue.
@Cat Lady Margaret, With cats, wouldn't it be DEHAIR? Asking for a feline friend.
What a challenging, delightful experience this was. Sometimes you want to track down the constructor and let 'em have it, but this was like learning to play a new piece of music on an instrument. False starts, difficult runs, but it all came together when you found the right slant and the right set of words to fill it. Thank you, Adam. This whole week has been a stream of stressful appointments, worrisome conclusions, disappointing outcomes, and that was just the personal stuff, happening while the whole country is blowing up, a city at a time. The puzzle was a small escape, absorbing, entertaining, and fun.
@dutchiris, Sorry to hear that you’re going through some difficult times. I hope things get better for you. Funny how these crosswords give us something to hold on to when we need it and keep us afloat. 🙏🏻💙
@dutchiris Hang in there. We're all pulling for you. But I can tell from your reply to Mike from Munster that your pun making ability is still sharp as a scalpel.
@dutchiris all we can do is watch as a 250 year-old constitutional republic is dismantled. He and his minions have all the power at the moment. No one will stand up to him. Hang in there.
What’s fresh about this puzzle? Well, Ladies and GERMS, we have: SIDEWALKS running PHD level cluing for STP A humongus Roman numeral MIXINS / MKAY An ARTSY FARTSY FAUX NAÏF PIT STAINS And top it all off with the FBOMB… Yowzah!
@Mike R, I had FIXINS for a while, till I realized that didn’t work on the down. Too bad, because that’s what I call them!
"Oh, I know what that herb is called...oh, it's right on the tip of my tongue..." "Oooh, I'm sorry, you're out of thyme." (Me, losing on "The Spice Is Right")
@Mike Looks like you're trying to curry favor with that comment.
@Mike I’m not sure what you mint by that, but I get what you’re trying to sage.
@Mike You're out of luck And out of thyme! (But don't worry your head cause Monty Hall's not around)
@Mike You're certainly getting peppered with replies today. I don't know the whole reason, but it's parsely because it's so chili here in the midwest. My aunt coriander ancho her friend are here to see her cousin rosemary basil, her fiance.
@Mike Aye, there's the rub. 'Tis the season I suppose.
Is IONIC BOND James's clingy brother? Et tu, emu.
@Lewis And their sister, Covalent Bond. Who is always going on about wanting to share everything.
@Lewis. And the evil Auric, who went mad with Midas fever.
@Lewis @Mike Not to mention their American cousin, Treasury Bond, who gave them TIPS for saving.
@Lewis Or BARRYBONDS--did some famous sports thing!!!
All, Let us not forget James's clairvoyant aunt, PSYCHIC BOND!
I must be quaint, because I say "needn't" pretty frequently.
@Gary K My first guess was NEEDsT, which is indisputably quainter.
@Gary K I thought of so many—t'weren't, t'wasn't—kind of a let down when it turned out to be not at all quaint around here.
Yep, I even happened to use that word unquaintly in an e-mail yesterday.
@Gary K We needn't apologize for missing NEEDN'T, considering how it is courant for so many of us.
Once I filled in this answer with mostly crosses I thought it was a great clue. Gen Xer here who can't recall a time that I've ever used the word NEEDN'T
@Gary K Yes, Adam, we needn't get all ageist, need we? (Lowers her glasses, peers down nose...)
@Gary K I had WEEDNT for a while, because FAUXWAIF seemed right and I forgot there would be one less E for the quaint "we'dn't" (as in the royal "We'dn't go there if we were you") Could that be a thing?
I was Roman around this puzzle for the longest time.
This did not start off full of hope, oof. Luckily, I read the clue for the Roman numeral relatively early on, worked it backwards from the I to the M and that gave me the spine of the grid, from which I then built on. As I did, thinking about the clues (very, very few of which were gimmes), filling in the entries bit by bit, I was very aware of how extremely well this puzzle had been thought out. I finished pretty quickly given its level of difficulty (just barely sliding in with single digits, if I may brag for a moment), despite the Saturday-like vagueness of the clues and lots of unknowns, but that’s just such a testament to the skill of the constructor. This was all about logic and free-associating. The absolutely best kind of puzzle. Who is this masked crusader, I asked myself when I finished. Ah. Adam Aronson. Well, no wonder then. Hats off, Adam. The work of a master. One nit. A borderline political one. MLK is clued as a string of letters. Okay, fine, I won’t quibble with the slightly flippant clue because it’s hard to clue him without immediately giving away the answer since he’s such an iconic figure. But then we have Lenin with the anodyne clue of an “advocate” for “political mobilization.” The man was directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths (millions in some estimates). He was the author of the Red Terror, Cheka, camps, unspeakable brutality. C’mon, editors. You don’t pull punches when you clue Idi Amin. A nice, positive Lenin, though?
@Sam Lyons Very impressive!
@Sam Lyons 100% agree on the Lenin clue. It felt like an odd inclusion, to the point that i delayed typing it until it was the only possible solution left. It seemed white-washy.
@Sam Lyons Perhaps the constructor was trying to make the clue slightly less obvious? I don't think it necessarily signals approval.
@Sam Lyons Perhaps LENIN could have been clued as "Brutal dictator"? There's enough of them in our history that we would certainly be confused until we got a few crosses. Hitler? Stalin? Pol Pot? No, only five letters. Wait, does it start TR---?
@Sam Lyons in years to come, we can only imagine how Trump will be clued.
This poetic misadventure has been twice emu’d since last night. Maybe it’ll appear later but I’ve changed DOOM’s first name to EMF in case his moniker is the culprit. If not, then this will be emu’d too and I’ll accept that the emus simply have good taste. I’ve Got More Soul Than a Sock With a Hole* On ARTSY FARTSY SIDEWALKS Cats playin’ CATAN and RISK SAPS tryin’ out SPINKICKS FAUX NAIFS sellin’ KNICKNACKS FBI handin’ out kickbacks Madvillain rhymin’ over SAX tracks Bob Dylan tryin’ on a WET RAINCOAT Paid 3,888 YEN for a MALTED float But hey man, it’s MLK DAY, Call me a KOOK, that’s MKAY, Stop ASKIN’ if we OUT OF TIME Just put a BRAND NAME on that ILL rhyme. * EMF DOOM (aka Madvillain) lyric
Seriously out of my league. Couldn’t get a toe hold anywhere, so threw the towel in. On the upside TIL that 16 Tons. A song I remember from the radio as a child, was about a COAL MINER. More importantly (for me), today I saw my nurse daughter spring into action when an elderly lady took an awful tumble into the road in front of us; assessed her injuries, immobilised her damaged limb, kept her calm when the initial shock wore off and was a general good egg until the ambulance arrived. Never been more proud.
I loaded sixteen tons of number 9 coal And the straw boss said, "Well-a bless my soul!"
@Helen Wright sunshine wishes to you and your lovely daughter. Thinking often of Mr Rogers these days - "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."
@Helen Wright That's great. Between Boy Scouts and the Army, I've had loads of first aid training, but never had cause to use any of it. I suppose that's a good thing.
First thought was that the zinc compound must be in a sunscreen. I do not advise using STP for this purpose.
Hey, this puzzle had pop, felt alive. Not only because of the four X’s and eight K’s, but also the 12 NYT debut answers. Debut answers aren’t always premier – and some of today’s aren’t, IMO – but they always give the solver an answer and clue never seen before, and double-digit debuts defy same-old same-old. It is also junk free, but I say that in passing, because all of AA’s grids are. That spanning Roman numeral? I sheeshed when it looked like every square of it would depend on crosses. But then I started liking it more and more because the seven Roman numeral letters helped me check the crossing answers. Also, that Roman numeral is a rare-in-crosswords 15-letter semordnilap (just kidding). The 15 longs kept things fun and interesting, not to mention lovely shorts as well – BASK, KOOK, MKAY, and FOIST. I liked BRAND NAME sharing the box with GAP and STP. Enough bite to happify my brain, enough pop to heighten my mood. Bravo, Aaron, and thank you!
fake palms : face palms :: face plants : fake plants Crossword puzzle synchronicities are so fun
@C Diamond Not to mention the repetition of FAUX.
I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked “what is the longest number you can write in standard Roman numerals?”, but it’s not that many.
@Peter G. I? V? X? LXIX? CDXX?
I loved this because everyone in my household could contribute: youngest child for geography (ARUBA), oldest child for leftist politics (LENIN), husband for music (COALMINER) and me for the rest (youngest helped with many others too) A group effort and very rewarding!
As a chemist, I should point out the brilliance of 12D [In which opposites attract]. However, I discovered that MAGNETISM has the same number of letters as IONICBOND, and yet share not a single consonant, and none of the letter positions have the same letters.
@Francis I was pretty happy to finally come up with IONICBOND because it looked plausible. I hadn't even thought of MAGNETISM but probably would have entered it if I had. I love sophisticated clues even if I have no idea about the answer!
@Francis. Weirdly, two wires that have current in the same direction attract magnetically , and two wires with current in the opposite direction repel magnetically. That we define poles for magnetic fields is the peculiarity, as there are no magnetic monopoles, as far as we know so far. But it would take only one magnetic monopole in the universe to unify quantization of charge with the other quantum stuff.
Francis — last I checked, N was a consonant.
Just...stop. Stop it. KNICKKNACK? ARTSYFARTSY? PITSTAINS? FBOMB? FACEPALM. Mr Aronson? Bravo. And hypothetically, if you start getting friend requests or emails from someone named, I don't know, let's say like- CeeCee, or CC, or something like that, she (or he...I don't know) probably wants to beg you to collaborate on a puzzle sh-...*they* may *hypothetically* be working on, and may (hypothetically) grovel. Hypothetically.
@CCNY Hey, Good luck with that! Looking forward to the denouement... xoxo
NEEDN'T is "quaint"? Oof. Tell me I'm old without telling me I'm old.
@William Kash The thing is that NEED can function as a modal auxiliary in negative statements. You can say he need not go, he NEEDNT go. Note it is not NEEDs, he needs not go is wrong, because it's not conjugated like a verb in this case. Americans don't seem to speak that way, you are more likely to hear it in British english. If that makes it quaint, MKAY by me.
8D was key to my faster than average solve today. I got XCIX problems, but a Roman Numeral ain't I.
"...know who's the ILLest ever, like the greatest story told..." Out loud gasp at the tribute to MF DOOM, wowowow. RIP to a master. Just remember ALLCAPS when you spell the man name! ❤️
The constructor wanted that... "And last, I’m thrilled to debut the late, great MF Doom in a Times crossword clue. I promise my original submission used all caps when I spelled his name, but I’ll yield to the Times style guide just this once."
@Barry Ancona ha I was so excited that I came to comment before reading the notes. That's just something one says reflexively when one sees Doom referenced anywhere.
@Andrzej 😂 happens more often than one would think!
Done in by the Southeast corner. Just could not see TINDER BIO or SIDEWALKS. Knowing the name of the Korean dish might have helped. No matter, been a while since I found a Saturday so challenging, yet mostly solvable. Nice to see MLK in the center on his weekend.
[Billy the blade of grass warn't knee-high to a grasshopper as a sprout, but the nurturing spring rains helped him grow to the dizzying heights of a grasshopper leaping mightily as if to reach a book of Aesop's fables on the top shelf-the books having been arranged alphabetically. The summer came in dryer than a Milton Berle set and lo, Billy withers. In time Billy and Billy's buds were gathered in a tuft that helped spark a toasty campfire, around which children ate s'mores and told ghost stories.] TINDER BIO
Struggled with today. But it’s partly because my dad passed away yesterday. Oddly I didn’t automatically get Margarita=Daisy as I’m a PEO and one of our symbols is the Marguerite Daisy. Loll. Loved the cross of artsy fartsy big Catan player. And a teacher who’s 12-13 years old kids regularly drop FBOMBS
@Megan So sorry for the loss of your father. Wishing you peace and comfort in this difficult time.
@Megan So sorry that you lost your father. May his memory be a blessing!
@Megan Sorry for your father's passing. May he rest in peace.
@Megan my deepest condolences to you my PEO sister. And that Marguerite daisy was my first toehold in the puzzle. Greetings from AA/DC!
@Megan, So sorry that you lost your father. My deepest condolences to you and your family.
This ultimately proved unsolvable without aid for me. With some effort I completed the top half of the grid on my own, but I knew too little to handle the bottom half, and I really just wasn't vibing with the clues in general. I personally found the gimmick with the Roman numeral annoying rather than anything else (even though I'm quite good with Roman numerals in general). It wasn't an objectively bad puzzle, of course, but it brought me little joy. How is BRANDNAME the answer to "Reputable, in a way". Is BRAND NAME used as an adjective here? I'm confused.
@Andrzej They mean, for example, BRANDNAME drugs vs generic drugs. See my comment above which I wrote the same time as you; I really don’t think generic drugs or anything else are really less reputable (or even reliable).
@Andrzej But you loved IONICBOND, though, right? (Say "yes").
Way to highjack my thread without my even understanding what's going on!
@Andrzej Yes, BRAND NAME (often hyphenated) is used an adjective here, meaning well known (and possibly reputable or high quality). “Andrej only smokes brand-name cigarettes…”.
@Andrzej Rings a bell from my viewing this month. From Google: "A PBS NewsHour investigation released on January 11, 2026, highlighted significant concerns regarding the regulation and quality testing of generic drugs in the United States. While generic drugs make up roughly 90% of prescriptions in the U.S., the report found that the FDA rarely tests the quality of these drugs after approval."
VERY VERY Difficult. Way above my pay grade. Broke my no-lookups streak. I'm a good to very good solver, but this one put me to shame.
Had DEUCE in 1D for an embarrassingly long time.
@Johanna, glad I just finished my coffee! That would've made me spray it all over my iPad! 🤣🤣🤣
@Johanna ha! i checked for DEUCE but (sadly!) my crosses wouldn’t allow it.
@Johanna, I tried to figure out how TROU might be spelled with five letters!
I am finally *starting* to get a bit my swagger back after having been blue-starred Wednesday and Thursday of last week. I really liked [Dough at a taquería]. And 8D should be a crossword hall of fame, for my money. 33A was a great tribute, and it's nearly his day. I used to sing Tennessee Ernie Ford's song "Sixteen tons" as I'd drag my behind to work, before I retired. As a software developer. It would remind me of what a great life I had, because I loaded a lot less than sixteen tons, and though I was a day older, I was not deeper in debt. What a great song.
@Francis I remember the song as well on one of my mom’s vinyl records. I have fond memories of it, along with “The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane” and “It’s Istanbul not Constantinople” which had the dubious lyric “Why did Constantinople get the works? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks”. Odd the little tidbits you remember.
@Francis In an earlier life I worked in a little bank in a toney community where my customers included William Shockley and Tennessee Ernie Ford. I often thought to myself that such an unlikely pairing could only happen in California.
@Francis Imagine if we'd had to buy our own computers back in the 80s! On one of my developer jobs, my first assignment was to build my desk!
My life was simplified once I realized LONGEST NEEDNT mean the LARGEST. I also wanted TWASNT for the contraction. I guess that the demands of the 8D Themer created the need for simpler fill. When our mother said NEEDNT, it came out sounding like NEEN, as in "You NEEN to make faces when you see canned spinach!" ...which wasn't even the truth. The Korean language has a G in it? GALBI sounds like a Roman Caesar
Just another lazy Saturday morning for me -- but, then again, I'm retired, and every day is Saturday. So I was just sitting around, sucking on coca leaves, listening to my MF Doom albums (as usual) and thinking what a fine lyricist he is. Haven't counted, but I'll bet he's penned MMMDCCCLXXXVIII great songs by now. 28D threw me off my game, as my first-pass fill was JOHNHENRY and thought that sorority pledges dreaded MID DAY, as lunch can be so stressful when one is young. Other than those, everything worked themselves out, although I wondered why NEEDNT is a "quaint" contraction, it seems like all the others to me.
Great puzzle - thank you! Can’t believe I finished it with no assistance or texting my son re sports or Harry Potter. VERY happy not to come here and find complaints about it being too easy 🙃 - will spend the rest of the day resting firmly on my laurel.
Just back from reunion w kids I taught Latin to in te 80s...of course, they're no longer kids...one even became a Professor of Latin at Notre Dame. So I loved the Roman numerals...it's about how old I felt! LOL. We often never know the influence we have as teachers...Ad astra!! Gratias tibi, Adam.
@Norwood Loved your post ❤️ I taught Latin for a few months at an all-girls Catholic high school. The English teacher was on maternity leave and I covered her English classes for 3 months but also her Latin classes. I had taken some Latin at Northwestern, before starting my Masters in English, so they thought I could fake my way through the Latin classes. I stayed up late every night going through my Latin grammar books to try and pass myself off as competent. It was stressful but I loved the Latin classes because those young women really wanted to be there, while most in my English classes had little to no interest in reading or discussing The Odyssey. I decided teaching high school was not for me. I later went back to grad school for another MA in Linguistics and loved it. I ended up teaching ESL to adults at a community college, best job I ever had. Sorry to be so long-winded. Trip down memory lane.
In Roman numerals, 40 is XL, not XXXL, hope that can be corrected in the column.
FBOMB, ARTSY FARTSY, PITSTAIN. Anyone else find today's puzzle just a little on the crude side?
@Paul Stoddard I submitted a comment last night that the Gray Lady must be feeling her oats. It never showed up. (I also said not to confuse her with Lady Jane Grey.)
@Paul Stoddard As I was completing it, I was saying to myself “How far down in the comment section before the first complaint about this puzzle being crude?” To the credit of commenters everywhere, yours was a few scrolls down.
It was a definite surprise — though a welcome one — to see an MF DOOM clue in the Grey Lady (and a relatively obscure bar IMHO, even if it was itself an homage to "Love You Down"). Disappointed that the ALL CAPS didn't make it past the editors, but I certainly understand not wanting to cross them. Perhaps "ALLCAPS" could make a cute clue in the future, as in "How one is instructed to spell MF Doom's handle."
Rocky Top, ALLCAPS has been an ANSWER five times; you have suggested a new [clue] for it. 5 results for ALLCAPS from Modern Era puzzles: Mon Feb 22, 2021 44D Sign of online shouting Barbara Lin Sun Jul 31, 2016 1A What an urgent message may be in Ruth Bloomfield Margolin Tue Nov 11, 2014 18D WHAT THIS IS IN James Mulhern Thu Jul 17, 2014 7D Indicator of stress Alan Arbesfeld Thu Nov 22, 2012 1D Indication of excitement in an e-mail Joel Fagliano
@Rocky Top I'd prefer "stuffed mushroom recipe guideline". /no cap
Having never heard of GALBI, I couldn't fathom "LAP" being wrong in the SE corner and my time suffered as a result. Oh well, a sign that I need more culture in my life. Excellent Saturday!
@Ian broke a118 streak because of that. Nasty Natick.
@Ian And maybe more Korean food?
@Ian Galbi is delicious. Korean BBQ has been one of my favorite ways to eat out ever since spending a year in Busan in my youth. I'm a big fan of the banchan, which is all of the little side dishes that come with every order. Give it a try if you get a chance!
That was WAY too easy for a Saturday. Not. I sweated this one and thus the completion was especially gratifying. My first jaunt through the grid I got very few words but eventually the puzzle revealed itself as it always does eventually. This is my favorite kind of Saturday puzzle--when you think ok I can't do this on my own and then see that I can, based on excellent, fair, natick-free construction. Thank you Adam Aaronson.
@AudreyLM, You’ve earned that air of smug today. Always good to see you here.
The ODDs of a Puzzlemucker poem and a cup of smug with Audrey LM on the same day are about MMMDCCCLXXXVIII to I. Nice to see you both.
40D brought to mind the jazz classic "Well You NEEDN'T" by the legendary Thelonious Monk: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-d32veDFOw" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-d32veDFOw</a>
@Pax Ahimsa Gethen Thanks for this! Enjoyed listening just now as a treat for finishing the puzzle and shifting into the rest of the day.
@Pax Ahimsa Gethen Well you NEEDN’T have, but I’m glad you did.
7D - Said no basketball fan or announcer ever
@LJADZ Thank you. Seems to me some heights were stretched to turn a lay up -- up being key -- into laid in.
@LJADZ You’d hear Laid It In often enough, but I think never without the It. Or maybe “He should have laid that in.” As crossing words filled in I had Lays Up, then Lays In before going to Laid.
[Stocked up] would have been a Monday clue. I enjoyed being misdirected to LAID up. It's a Saturday puzzle (said a crossword fan).
Perfect crunchy Saturday with lots of X’s & K’s! FauxNaif & ArtsyFartsy were my favorites & I will work into casual conversation today. Still wondering - why are SAPS good marks?
@CeCe A sap is a person who is easily conned, so is an “easy mark” for the con man.
@CeCe Took me a while. A sap is an easily tricked person, making them a good mark for a con artist.
@CeCe A sap is slang for a “sucker” or “fool” so they make good targets or “marks” for a con. It took me awhile for my brain to let go of marks as grades.
@CeCe a SAP is a good person to pull a con on. Con artists call them “marks.”
@CeCe I believe it’s because saps could refer to gullible people…?
Astounding. Usually I complain that a themed puzzle forces too many non-words and 'Naticks', but this one pulls it off. To learn the longest Roman numeral, all the while beholding all those Xs and Cs and letters in a row fitting with (mostly) actual words.. maybe the most amazing puzzle I've ever seen.
Great puzzle. I was stuck on FAUXwAIF for a bit Anyone else still writing MMXXV on their cheques?
@Shayne Taback No but I tried entering Roman numerals on Venmo, and it did not go well.
@Shayne Taback Funny stuff! I gave up checks a few years ago. I've become very anti-paper. I actually had to practice my signature for mail-in voting. All for naught however :o(
@Shayne Taback Anyone still writing cheques?
Attempted a start last night, plugged in FACEPALMS and then quit while I was ahead. Smooth and fun morning solve with an interesting numerology lesson. Gratias multas.
I didn’t get SAPS or PESOS, struggled in the SE generally, looked askance at MKAY and thought I was headed for a DNF. I gave up on variations of masa when the penny dropped, but was still surprised to get the gold star when I made the change. My favorite answer was FAUX NAÏF, among others which made me smile. All in all my favorite Saturday in a long time.
A thoroughly enjoyable solve. It was not easy, had almost nothing after my first pass and I had to leave some areas blank for awhile, but ended up solving in less than my usual time. But the crunch during the solve left me satisfied--kind of like a few bites of a very rich dessert. First filled in the Roman numerals as MMMDDDCCCLLLXXX and was momentarily nonplussed when I came back around to the instrument and realized it had to be a SAX. Stared a moment, then FACEPALMed when I realized you'd never use two D's or two L's together in standard notation. (I'm assuming this has been discussed below, but not going to read all ya'll's comments right now.) One more comment before getting back to the writing I'm supposed to be doing. Something that helped speed things along today was, whenever I was stuck, assuming there was some more interesting logic the constructor and editors were using than what I was using. I find this is usually a pretty safe bet for this venue--and often jostles the synapses enough to get me going again.
Caitlin, XXXL is a rather large clothing size. XL is 40 (and also a not-as-large clothing size).
Can someone ammend 38A to be ALL CAPS please?
Odd choice to make every single answer DOODYHEAD, but with 365 of these to publish a year I guess they can’t all be winners.