"My tailor finally picked up the phone!" "Sounds like a clothes call!" ("Sure seams like it!")
@Mike Hemming and hawing, no doubt, panting to make it seam he'd had to run for the phone. One would think he'd have a vested interest in lining your pockets to line his own. (Let's sleeve it at that.)
@Mike When you asked him about it, was he hemming and hawing rather than explaining?
@Mike Be careful Mike! He’ll spin you a yarn with that silky voice of his and before you’ve cottoned on he’ll have the shirt off your back! Tell him to button it (or zip it!) or simply belt up!
@Mike He'll likely be embroidering some excuse.
@Mike you guys have me in stitches! 🤣
@Mike Is there no end to your fabrications? This all borders on the antisewcial.
Well, the zany outfit itself was fun. So was trying to guess the theme answers from their visual and wordplay clue-riddles. Then there was the richness of uncovering words that strike me as beautiful, such as PIQUE, DIKDIK, EXACTAMUNDO and WREAKS. Oh, and the fauna-rich collection in the grid warmed my animal-loving heart – LLAMA, MINK, ELKS, DIKDIK, RAY, PURRS, MAA, FERAL, TUXEDO, plus that SKULKing fox and the hidden snake in Portugal’s capital. The whole vibe in the box was marvelously upbeat, and that on top of everything else I've mentioned made this puzzle so much more than simply filling in the squares. This was a splendid, splendid experience. Thank you, Zhou and Mallory!
@Lewis I was surprised to learn that AO DAI was a debut, given all those vowels. I'm sure plenty of solvers, like the columnist, has an "Oh, so that's what you call it" moment. And now, back to your regularly scheduled SARI.
I really like this theme of type.
@Mike R You should check out cryptic crosswords! They use similar wordplay to today’s theme. I recommend MinuteCryptic as a way to get started if you’re new.
I'm so glad Zhou and Mallory decided to give it another try! Congrats and well done!
Somewhere, once, when someone really went out of their way to annoy it, a KOALA got angry enough to spit. Or so I thought for a while there.
I did this one while my tuxedo cat purred on my lap!
@Madeline So did I! Please come get your cat.
So there is an antelope with two DIKs! Who knew? AODAI looks so weird! I would never have got it without crosses, and the fact it crossed with two proper names had me scared for a moment. Then I realized the crossword staple of LANAI is not only a traditional porch but also an island, and M(A)E looked better than any other option. I guess I sort of get the theme, but isn't it a bit... Disjointed? I suppose it's enough that all the themed clues are rebuses of sorts, even if each of them works differently in detail. Despite some minor difficulties I solved this in this week's Tuesday time, and in about 55% of my Thursday average. I found the majority of the clues just too straightforward for this time in the week 🤷🏽
Lucek the poodle turned 1 last Saturday. However, lying next to the bed here as I'm browsing the comments he still looks like a puppy 😃 <a href="https://imgur.com/a/VtuUzkI" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/VtuUzkI</a> Also, please take note of the cultural artefact of slippers: over here we all take off our outside shoes as we enter our homes and change into slippers and house clothes (which is why there are no coins in our sofas - the cash stays in our outside threads). Watching Americans on TV put their shoes on furniture was one of my biggest shocks of the early 1990s 😄
@Andrzej All theme answers are items of clothing, which (for me) doesn't make it too disjointed.
@Andrzej Amazed that first sentence made it past the emus. And if you think that's impressive go ahead and look up the male echidna's anatomy. As though being an egg-laying mammal wasn't weird enough...
@Andrzej Shhh… be careful saying the R word around here.
@Andrzej I know "Maggie MAy" as a Rod Stewart song, so that Beatles song threw me way off. And LANAI was previously owned by Dole Pineapple Co., but is now owned by Larry Ellison, so they might have to change the clue to "Oracle Island."
@Andrzej Yes, an antelope with dual exhausts!
Never before in my long life have I ever learned a piece of trivia and put it to use within 5 minutes. I watched a quiz show immediately prior to starting the crossword. The last question: what is the name given to a cat that has a black coat with white fur on its chest and throat? I had never heard of a TUXEDO cat prior to hearing the quiz answer.
@coloradoz I believe tuxedos made it into the Gameplay column or its picture this year. When I got this answer I had two reactions: told my tuxedo cat Maya she made it into the NYT xword; and hoped they would put a tuxedo cat in the column again.
@coloradoz We all get our lucky days. The problem is by the time we figure out it *is* our lucky day, it isn't any more.
@coloradoz The Clintons' cat Socks was a tuxedo cat. So that's one famous tuxedo cat, I'm sure there are others. Like Sylvester. The term has been around at least as long as I have.
CRYPTIC CLOTHING?WORDPLAY WARDROBE?TYPOGRAPHICAL THREADS? I scratched my head to try to come up with a raison d'etre for the theme answers -- otherwise known as a revealer. Couldn't come up with one. And there isn't one! So that was the right decision -- indeed the ONLY decision -- Zhou and Mallory. Clever and at times baffling. A worthy Thursday. I love the wordplay and I love the thinking it required me to do. To the "why?" of the themer conceit, I reply "Why not?" A 1-letter DNF for me. I didn't know the Vietnamese garment and I thought that the answer to Chat GPT and Claude might be ATS as in @@. So I had AODAT. Now I see. They're AIs. Never thought of that. And that's because the mantra of my remaining years is going to be: "IF AI LEAVES ME ALONE, I WILL LEAVE AI ALONE." I intend to go to my grave without even once allowing its intrusive, know-it-all, high-handed and possibly apocalyptic presence into my life. You heard it here first! A terrific puzzle, Zhou and Mallory!
@Nancy It is a terrific puzzle and it was fun and challenging too. I'm a Boomer too and I share your viewpoint. I also LOVE your mantra about AI. Problem for me is it seems so hard to avoid. I'm sure there are times I think I'm avoiding it but it sneaks up and butts in when I haven't noticed. I have to get out for my daily hill walk before it gets too hot, but eventually I'll figure out where my mistake is. Don't know how I would get through my day without crosswords :-)
@Nancy I also want to leave AI alone!! I'm with you! Unfortunately I think we have to go on the attack a bit speak out against the data centers that are getting approved and built now. They're as large as small cities and one of the recent ones uses as much water as the city of Chicago. Drove past a construction site and thought I was driving through a wasteland...
@Nancy. I used to say the same thing about Middlemarch. Glad I relented
@Nancy Re AI: Alas, would that you could! Every search you make in any major browser, every time you download an update for pretty well any app, every time you shop online, every time you even post here, AI is clawing at your cyber-innards, looking for more data and trying to inject itself into your computing. A curse upon its talons!
Man, some of these comments. I loved today’s puzzle. Clever theme that I just happened to catch on quickly ( can’t say that often!). I enjoyed the offering very much. Thanks for all the hard work! Hope to see more by you two.
AODAI x LANAI x MAE x AIS x LISBOA x CLIO is a trainwreck of trivia. editors.. anyone home?!?
@Charles respectfully disagree. It's supposed to be a puzzle, not a word filling exercise.
@Charles perhaps you could argue that AODAI and LANAI are quite obscure (I would agree with the former tbh but on its own it’s innocuous). The rest though are fine imo. CLIO is used so regularly it’s basically “crosswordese”, the first five letters of LISBOA are pretty well known, ‘Maggie MAE’ is similarly quite famous, more so when you consider Rod Stewart’s hit with the same pronunciation (although I’m aware they are different songs), and Chat GPT is almost universally known as an A.I. model.
@Charles The only one of those I had trouble with was AODAI (and originally had MAY). Hardly a trainwreck. Anyway, it’s a Thursday. They’re supposed to be tricky.
Delightful! In addition to the themed articles of clothing, we got to see an AO DAI, a MINISKIRT, and a TUXEDO. To me, this was a perfect Wednesday puzzle. N.B. Yesterday, we had a civilian take on TAKE POINT. Today we have only metaphoric BATTLE SCARS. Are the editors suggesting we should gird our loins?
@Barry Ancona MINISKIRT was also a themer! Some people couldn’t see the clue in the minj font, maybe you were among them?
This was one of those Thursdays that managed to sit PURRfectly in my trivia wheelhouse and honed crossword skills, so I sailed through, which usually doesn’t happen on the weekends. I loved it! I was especially proud of myself when I confidently filled in ELS, and didn’t balk at timiL. “ITS BAD” made me laugh out loud. I also really enjoyed the combo of TUXEDO, FERAL, and PURRS in this one. It instantly reminded me of my special little one-eyed soul cat Baby. He died suddenly from complications of a birth defect last year, at only 8. I didn’t get to say goodbye and it devastated me. (I’ll never forget the puzzle that day had the word “CAT” smack in the middle of it, which I filled in while we sat at the emergency vet.) I still miss him and think of him every day, but for whatever reason I’ve happened to feel a lot of memories and reminders of his presence all over the place this week. This puzzle felt like an extra touch of his paws to my heart 💛 Thank you, Zhou and Mallory!
@Ali J So I just went back to the crossword from March 18, 2025 and upon seeing it remembered being spooked by the answers that day, because not only was CAT right in the middle, but the answer immediately preceding it was HERNIA - which is what ultimately took his life that night. (A tear in his previously-repaired congenital diaphragmatic hernia.) It was an awful day, but regardless of the life-long heartbreak I’ll carry, the bond between me and that affectionate, feisty, runt of the litter, formerly feral, physical anomaly of a cat was more than worth every bit of it.
@Ali J thanks so much for sharing this. it's somehow just what i needed to read. 💛 we had to say goodbye to our 16-year-old sweet Penny-cat today, and my heart is hurting, hurting, hurting. i'm sorry you didn't get to say goodbye to your sweet kitty, and i'm profoundly grateful that we got the chance to do that. she had a peaceful passing, surrounded by people who love and adore her. may we all be so lucky.
@Ali J: I feel for you. I lost my darling Tuxedo Ollie when he threw a clot, suffered an hour long drive to the emergency clinic, and then was gently euthanized while i blubbed uncontrollably out in the waiting room. You never forget them, do you?
I love it when this pair come up with a puzzle! Just one thing: all respect for the new way to clue OREO, but VANILLA, STRAWBERRY and especially CHOCOLATE are the three correct flavours for a milkshake. Oreo is just gonna clog up your straw and you probably deserve it. That is all.
Sian, Strawberry will too, if it's made with real strawberries. Your comment took me back more than 70 years!
@Sian 1A [PDA at Häagen-Dazs] SCOOPNECK
@Sian I always wanted COFFEE but only a few places would make it for me, alas.
If this ran on a Wednesday, it would have made it into my early week POY contender file. The theme was great fun. Not only are they all clothing items, but they're featured from head to foot. Nice attention to detail. The cluing was pretty straighforward for the non-themers, leaving me feeling let down.
@Nancy J. "If this ran on a Wednesday, it would have made it into my early week POY contender file." Are you editorializing? 😊
I gather I'm in the minority knowing the AO DAI, and in a smaller subset having seen it worn in its native land.
@Barry Ancona congratulations!
Fun, fresh theme. The clue for MINI SKIRT showed up in a regular sized font on my app (just it's position was slightly offset)- I'm assuming it's an app bug and it was supposed to be in a much smaller font to fit in with the rest of the theme.
@Rahul I was reading comments to see if anybody else had that same problem. I didn't realize it was a theme clue until I completed the puzzle.
@Rahul The editors really need to double-check the "special effects" in all of the versions before publication. It is very confusing when clues don't show the way the author intended, and even more confusing when people who solved the different versions talk about it. :-) I just checked the four modes of publication I have available: * Website: it shows up as a superscript (small letters, shifted up). * Printable PDF: small letters, but not as a superscript. * NYT news app: superscript. * NYT Games app: "large superscript" (shifted up, but in normal size) So I guess you were using the Games app.
@Rahul I had the misfortune of being forced to use the games app today due to travel. It was only when I got back to my beloved PC that I could see the tiny (uppercase?) font for that clue.
Nice puzzle. Some fun clues and fill. Wrong day. As far as the Wordplay column goes, the columnist explains how two of the theme answers work and then says that "we" should figure out the others on our own. Now I didn't need help with that, but I thought one of the main purposes of the column, especially on Thursdays, was to explain all the tricky theme clues for people who need help. That's all.
@Vaer I agree. I'm still trying to puzzle together: 42A [Evade]---> MINISKIRT
@Lucky 13 Are you on the games app on an Android phone? Because it's hard to tell that the clue [Evade] is supposed to be in superscript, ie smaller font and raised, which makes it mini + to evade something is to skirt around it, hence MINI SKIRT. Hope my attempted explanation is understandable.
Loved the puzzle and the theme. However, whatever effect was put on the word "Evade" to make it MINI did not show up on my app. The word was slightly higher up on the bar than others but not visibly smaller.
@O thank you, I couldn't figure out how that one was supposed to give us the entry! I got it from the crosses, but it was still confusing because it didn't look small, just slightly higher.
Other than the cross of MAE and AODAI, neither of which would necessarily be common or guessable, this was a good puzzle.
Did you not know and fail to guess both of them, or were you just suggesting you thought others might have trouble there?
@Dave K. I guess I have to accept that I am old when everything the Beatles ever wrote, said, sang or did is no longer common knowledge.
Fun puzzle! Very clever, enjoyable to do. Thank you to the constructor
Do we have a name for weird coincidences between the puzzle and real life? Today I have a list for the hardware store. Item #1 - linseed oil.
@Chungclan Yes. Jung coined it. Synchronicity. He wrote very eloquently about it.
@Chungclan Yes. Jung coined it. Synchronicity. He wrote very eloquently about it.
I was wanting WREAK to be The Word on Wordle, but this is close enough, I guess! This puzzle probably isn't difficult enough for a Thursday, but the clever clue/entry pairings are such fun that I don't have the heart to complain. I did have to back up at 25A; I decided, on the basis of absolutely zero knowledge of Portuguese, that if SAO PAOLO was in Brazil, that LISBAO might be in Portugal. Close, but no cigar, eh? Easily amended by the ever-present OREO! Loved the fun clues, the Dryden quote, and especially 3D.
@Mean Old Lady But at least Bilbao is in Spain.
Somehow avoided getting clotheslined by this puzzle and finished it under my Thurs average! It felt more like a Wednesday TBH. In fact, I think yesterday’s puzzle was slightly harder than this one.
Awesome Wednesday puzzle!
Three separate thoughts: The clue for 20A should be Ɉimi⅃, not timiL, but I suppose there would have been Unicode difficulties if they used that. It's interesting how after my commenting on clues for the entry LOO two days ago, in which I included [John for Elton John], and then in the Wed. puzzle, CLEESE comes up in the puzzle when I had just also referenced the clue [John for Cleese], today we have practically the opposite, [John from Britain] for ELTON. Finally, I'd like to point out that this puzzle contains elements of visual wordplay not unlike the H-O-H strings last Thursday, insomuch as playing around with letters in some unorthodox way suggests something else. However, the author has not chosen (correctly so!) not to call this puzzle by the R-word. All is right with the world.
@Steve L If done your way the L would need to be flipped as well.
@Steve L Oh ... wait... it is.
@Steve L You didn't flip the m.
@Steve L 20A was not a problem for me. I read it as *spelled* backwards.
This was fun. Good theme! Good clues! My only actual error was llm for AIS -- I hadn't been sure if the spitting animal was LLAMA or camel, so left that blank, and didn't know AODAI, so 13D was fully blank on my first pass through downs. I prefer calling ChatGPT a Large Language Model, because AI as a term can refer to so many things, and ChatGPT doesn't really have intelligence per se.
@Isabeau -- Ugh, I just repeated this point about LLMs. Great minds, etc.
A bit easy for a Thursday, but a fun exercise. A few semi-stumpers and nice misdirection here and there, but it came together nicely. Having done many "wacky wordies" when subscribing to "Games" magazine years ago, it didn't stretch my brain too far to figure out the theme clues and come up with the answers (along with the occasional cross). Thanks, Zhou and Mallory!
I really enjoyed this one. A fun and entertaining challenge, groaning puns and two minutes under my average. Tip of the cap to the constructors.
Absolutely delightful. I love what they did to the clues to get the items of clothing. I enjoyed doing this puzzle so much. More, more, more. . . .
Really enjoy this kind of lateral thinking puzzle My contribution: Lend a helping ____ HANDOUT
@Long walks n sunsets To keep with the theme, the answer should refer to something you wear. So here's my contribution: _pecification_ RIMLESSSPECS
If you are so inclined, might you commenters with pull try to exert some muscle to get us back to the old days where the app could display the puzzle and the comments simultaneously in separate windows? This is a day when being able to toggle between the puzzle and the column/comments would be extremely convenient. Opening the puzzle in a browser is clunky, and the clues take up half the screen on my droid. Spoiled-child rant of the day. Peace.
@Long walks n sunsets you can sorta do that if you have both the NYTIMES app and the Games app open. Not perfect, but fewer steps.
@Long walks n sunsets Not to rub it in, but I can look at the Comments on my iPad and glance over at the (filled-in) Puzzle right next to it.....because pen and paper! (I print on used pages, and this one fed into the printer crooked. Nothing vital is missing, but it's on a 12-degree slant and the edges are a bit rumpled. TSK)
Today's poem made from words found in today's puzzle was inspired by Mallory Montgomery’s ginger cat (from her profile pic) <br> <br> a/ everyone knows the sound of a cat, bro <br> the perfect sound <br> like a river of jewels like a river <br> spitting stars like <br> d/ a piano in a clock <br> around and around and around <br> spreading out its <br> a/ purrs <br>
Sometimes you vibe with the constructor, sometimes you don't. Today was one of the former days for me. Breezed through it even though it had its traps. Can't wait for people to come here complaining that it was too easy, so that I can start feeling stupid again.
@Fotis I don't get your point, to be honest. You say you vibed with the constructor - so the solve went smoothly, even though it had its challenges, right? Does that not mean you generally found the puzzle easy? Now, if you find a puzzle easy it's OK, but if others do, too, then them saying so suddenly becomes "complaining", and you consider it a personal attack at your intellectual competence?
End piece? Could be omit just as easily as OBIT. You omit the piece from the final product. Ordered. Could be made just as easily as BADE. You order a product and have it made. I dislike when there are plausible solutions to clues. Tell me why the above doesn’t work. I could be missing something.
@Morn They don't work because they're wrong. Your justifications are stretchier than Turkish taffy.
@Morn It doesn’t work because it doesn’t work. There are often more than one possible answers that could fit in the boxes, most of which are not correct.
@Morn I did exactly this same thing. Also felt it was plausible.
[End piece?] and OBIT are both nouns. Omit is not a noun. Clue and answer must be the same part of speech.
@Morn I don't think omit would work well for "end piece". Generally something omitted is a part left out of a larger thing, whether that's omitting a fact from a story, omitting an article from a collection, or whatever. It's left out, it's dropped, but it's not ended.
@Morn if you think a clue having multiple potential answers is a problem, I’m not sure you like crosswords.
@Morn That would be really tricky to find if you were looking for a mistake (or "mistake") in completing the puzzle. I agree with the other comment, both words are plausible with an M. But I think both fit better with B.
@Morn That's why crosswords have *cross* words! The clues can be ambiguous, and that's part of the challenge. Figuring out which answer fits with the help of the crosses is the game. You are going to hate Fridays and Saturdays. Those days, you often count yourself lucky when a clue has only three plausible answers! :-)
@Morn Also, "He ordered me to do it"; "He MADE me do it". And tonight we will watch the end of a great piece of work by Stephen Colbert, thanks to someone hitting the OMIT button.
Morn: The word "omit" means "leave out". I don't see any way that "End piece" can be construed as a clue for "omit". But also, plenty of clues can have several plausible answers; this is entirely normal. But the intention is that there is only one correct answer that will agree with all the crossing words, and that is almost always the case.
@Morn I hear you! I confidently filled in CAMEL where LLAMA belongs today - I think the figuring-out-other-plausible-answers is one of my favourite bits of puzzling. It feels too straightforward when it's always the obvious (to me) answer...
@Morn Thanks for complaining! I had OMIT and couldn't figure out why my puzzle wasn't finishing.
This puzzle PIQUEd my interest. I was able to solve it without understanding the themers, and got a good laugh out of figuring them out after the fact. For some reason I have a fondness for words with odd combinations of vowels, so GOOIER and AODAI (previously unknown to me) were catnip. I also have to confess that I have used EXACTAMUNDO myself, and got a chuckle out of seeing it here. Getting it fairly quickly greatly aided my solve. Finally, I appreciated the disguised clue for old standby OREO.
I can see why it took years to make today’s theme work. These are hard! Here are my best attempts… T r o u s e r s? FLAREDPANTS d e n im? BOOTCUTJEANS C f e s? o f r SWIMMINGTRUNKS 1c? ONESIE Hyped up Supporter? UNDERWIREDBRA
@Petrol .n.i.c.k.e.r.s. PERIOD UNDERWEAR
@Petrol Lulz, the emus object to the word for a woman's natural cycle. Seriously? That's just beyond crazy. Anyway, here is another attempt, without the answer this time .n.i.c.k.e.r.s.
@Petrol Lulz, the emus object to the word for a woman's natural cycle. Seriously? That's just beyond wild. Anyway, here is another attempt, without the answer this time .n.i.c.k.e.r.s. Go back to 19th century Vatican, emu.
Now the bots released all of my three attemps at posting... I'd say I was sorry about spamming, but I am not to blame - the opaque, unpredictable "moderation" is.
Q: How many obscure proper nouns can I squeeze into a grid to make up for my lack of imaginative clueing? The constructors: Yes!
A very well-constructed puzzle, though the AODAI/LANAI crossing might prove a rough one. The former was new to me, though I did recall the island. Clever theme, presented expertly. Seemed a bit like a Wednesday to me, but took me longer to complete than yesterday's.
Fun puzzle, but not really the level expected on Thursday. I did it in record time.
the theme's double meanings for the 4 marquee clues are really something to behold - the fill was really easy except for a few beats that made things like a Thursday should be. AIS is a ghastly term that single or plural is no friend of of true creatives who trust the MIND.
I first thought the "Pineapple Isle" in 8D was KAUAI. Given the crosses I already had, that meant the angry spitting animal in 9A was likely a KOALA. I thought, "What? Those adorable little teddy bears spit when they're angry? Can I even imagine them GETTING angry??" It was a disillusioning revelation. Fortunately I eventually caught my errors and got the happy music. So TIDL that koalas have a nasty side!
Thank you Zhou and Mallory for a very fine grid, along with your great constructor notes! So glad you dusted off any early BATTLE SCARS in the co-constructing process and you persevered toward the acceptance WIN! I loved the misdirect clues, especially for 58D and 64A. Looking forward to your next collaboration!😊
Was like smooth peanut butter on warm toast. Very well done! What’s your favorite toast?
@Red Carpet "To our wives and sweethearts, in hopes they never meet."
@Red Carpet my dad's favorite: Wishing shampoo to our real friends and real poo to our sham friends!
@Red Carpet Cinnamon. The cinnamon is mixed with butter and sugar. Then when the toast is ready, the mixture is spread on the toast. Mmmm. I learned that recipe in home ec in school.
@Red Carpet May you always be the person your dog thinks you are
@Red Carpet Avocado. Just finished a delightful breakfast of just ripe avocado on gluten-free toast, with liberal salt and pepper. Yum.
@Red Carpet "May we all get to heaven half an hour before the devil knows we're dead."
@Red Carpet Hummus + ripe tomato Avocado + 'Bitchin' sauce'
@Red Carpet Whole wheat sourdough English muffin, fork split so there are lots of nooks and crannies, and then slathered with real butter and homemade blackberry jam. Blackberries are coming ripe this week. Yum!
Lately it feels like the trivia and natics are on steroids. Ok theme at best but not very fun, boring fill, sad Thursday, not much going on here for me. Usually my favorite day. Couldn't be bothered to look up all the obscure or niche names. No the crosses don't help when they are also obscure words or names. Great if it was easy for you. Just preempting the unhelpful responses I see when others posts similar experiences. Maybe we'll get something better next Thursday.
@M What were the niche names pray tell? I looked back quickly and found St. Benedict, ELTON John, and ANSEL Adams. If you don’t know them, it’s a great opportunity to learn something! I hope AO DAI didn’t spoil the puzzle for you- I didn’t know it either, but was grateful for the education.
@M The only obscure or niche answer in this puzzle was AO DAI. Maybe DIK DIK. And they were easily obtained by the crosses.