Can you name the most frequently used words in New York Times crosswords for each letter & length?

created by rockgolf

Enter a 3- 4- 5- or 6-letter word in the box below
Correctly named words will show up below
Answers do not have to be guessed in order
Source: XWord Info - All about the NYT crossword
Based on 15 years of New York Times crosswords, these words appear most frequently for each letter and length. 3- and 6-letter hints are straight definitions. 4- & 5-letter clues are more... playful.
Also try: One Name Singers A-Z

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3-letter words
A - Ingested (278 occurrences)
B - Bikini part (106)
C - Airport rental (106)
D - Place for trophies (143)
E - Cenozoic or Mesozoic (368)
F - Away's partner (61)
G - Something graded between E & F ?(118)
H - Ship's pronoun (105)
I - Ill temper (253)
J - Penny collector (59)
K - 'Toy Story 3' character (62)
L - Stan of Marvel Comics (172)
M - Sex kitten West (100)
N - Social register word (233)
O - Cosine of zero degrees (306)
P - Each (137)
Q - Proof ending (46)
R - Image specification, for short (173)
S - Upscale hotel offering (222)
T - Tobacco smoke component (185)
U - Consume (153)
V - By way of (83)
W - Itsy-bitsy (92)
X - Crosses out (36)
Y - Ouija option (158)
Z - Kind of state in the East (63)

4-letter words
A - Square footage (349 occurrences)
B - Crosby/Hope film locale (62)
C - Alternative to plastic (63)
D - 'Submarine' base? (95)
E - View from Buffalo (292)
F - Gratis (60)
G - It may be given from father to son (77)
H - Something about Mary? (100)
I - Comic strip light bulb (217)
J - Joe (34)
K - Last word in 'Oh Suzanna' (138)
L - Look like a wolf (109)
M - File Edit or Help (100)
N - Famous fiddler (143)
O - Cookie with 12 flowers per side (208)
P - 'Hey … over here!' (104)
Q - Call it a day (23)
R - Like a 1943 copper penny (150)
S - Macy's logo (172)
T - Pre-1917 autocrat (187)
U - Union member since 1896 (139)
V - Wind instrument (38)
W - St. Paul's architect (53)
X - Lawless role (46)
Y - French river deliberately flooded in WWI (91)
Z - Part of binary code (55)

5-letter words
A - How hermits like to be (120 occurrences)
B - Rafter's wood (39)
C - Olympics craft (62)
D - Caterpillar rival (68)
E - Shake an Etch A Sketch (186)
F - Two-faced (32)
G - Romance or horror (41)
H - McCain residence for 5 1/2 years (68)
I - Really steamed (122)
J - Honda's home (21)
K - Where Hawkeye served (40)
L - New Hampshire's state flower (65)
M - Free-for-all (54)
N - Egg containers (78)
O - Stand and deliver? (106)
P - 'Casablanca' music maker (51)
Q - Home to Al Jazeera (25)
R - 'Malcolm in the Middle' boy (96)
S - Billy Idol expression (82)
T - To the point (81)
U - Come together (65)
V - Restaurant employee (22)
W - He's found in books (24)
X - Element 54 (17)
Y - You may get a rise out of it (45)
Z - Congo, once (20)

6-letter words
A - Order to relax (2 wds) (73 occurrences)
B - Fruit with a peel (17)
C - Kodak product (23)
D - Computer key (26)
E - Lord and lady's home (83)
F - Sheep's coat (12)
G - Auto repair shop (17)
H - Candid and genuine (28)
I - Spain and Portugal (29)
J - High-flying clique (12)
K - 'The Wizard of Oz' setting (18)
L - Makeshift shelter (30)
M - Slobs' creations (18)
N - Christmas tree dropping (35)
O - Ukrainian port city (63)
P - Cousin of 'Abracadabra!' (31)
Q - Airline with a kangaroo logo (9)
R - _____ Peanut Butter Cups (22)
S - Less than quadraphonic (63)
T - Sleeping sickness carrier (73)
U - Best of all possible worlds (26)
V - Plywood layer (14)
W - Lech of Poland's Solidarity (11)
X - Persian king who destroyed Athens (8)
Y - Uncritical employee (16)
Z - Fanatic (11)

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There are 47 comments for this game.
(Warning: comments may contain spoilers)

Commonest Crossword Words A-Z Quiz

by rockgolf

Created Mar 10, 2011 in Language
Featured May 15, 2011
Game Plays 44,636

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Archived comments: show them

	googlebird:	May 15th, 2011 at 04:59 GMT		22 points
	Crosswords + Sporcle = Utopia! Fun quiz.

	mennoknight:	May 15th, 2011 at 05:03 GMT		18 points
	wouldn't have gotten the 5 letter R answer without misspelling the 6 letter one. Fun times.

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	MrCaliChicago:	May 15th, 2011 at 05:06 GMT		4 points
	Great quiz..except that for "Uncritical employee, y, 6 letters," I put in yuppie.

	Colmar:	May 15th, 2011 at 05:12 GMT		35 points
	For Penny Collector, J, 3 letters I put in something not so appropriate. The New York Times Crosswords are old though! :\|

	TimeAndTide:	May 15th, 2011 at 05:20 GMT		12 points
	Outstanding! Combining two of my favorite hobbies -- crosswords and sporcle! :-D Great clues ... very "crossword-y". I think my favorite clue was "Wind instrument" for V, 4-letters. And it's cool that the 4-letter words for S and T are anagrams.

	arm:	May 15th, 2011 at 06:14 GMT		0 points
	I assumed that for 5 letters beginning with a Y, the "get a rise out of" was about Yemen's uprising

	GregBuis:	May 15th, 2011 at 06:15 GMT		3 points
	@Colmar, I put the same thing... Whoops!

Comment below threshold: show it

	ChileNoseJam:	May 15th, 2011 at 10:42 GMT		10 points
	With clues like some of these, it's a wonder anyone ever manages to complete a NYT crossword.

	maaxwell:	May 15th, 2011 at 11:05 GMT		7 points
	I was sure "Stand and Deliver", starting with O, 5 letters, would have been Olmos

	WCRoentgen:	May 15th, 2011 at 11:11 GMT		11 points
	Can someone explain the 3-letter "G" clue?

	manoftheworld:	May 15th, 2011 at 11:38 GMT		4 points
	I like this quizz, much more straight forward than the ridiculous crosswords we got over here in England, example from todays paper: "Hiker by border following dog with no lead, one kept by Briton? (1,5,5,3) WTF?!

	koopa08:	May 15th, 2011 at 12:05 GMT		2 points
	I got 95...but I can NEVER come close to finishing the Times!

	WyattsTorch:	May 15th, 2011 at 12:11 GMT		1 point
	Great quiz! Thanks Rockgolf. One of my new faves.

	flagger:	May 15th, 2011 at 12:14 GMT		-1 points
	Anyone else get tripped up by the 6-letter "A" answer because they included the space?

	DidacticRogue:	May 15th, 2011 at 12:24 GMT		4 points
	Wait: "alakazam" neither starts with a P nor has six letters. Argh! Fun quiz.

	geniusonwheels:	May 15th, 2011 at 12:41 GMT		13 points
	@WCRoentgen: In most every car, the gas gauge's highest rating is an "F" for Full and an "E" for Empty. How much gas you have is somewhere in between.

	rockgolf:	May 15th, 2011 at 13:04 GMT		20 points
	@All: Glad so many of you are enjoying this. Last Friday's New York Times (Yes, Friday the 13th) crossword referenced Sporcle in the clues, so I suggested we return the favor. The clue for 51-Down that day was "Popular Sporcle subj." and the answer was "GEOG". You can see the solved puzzle with clues here: http://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/13/2011

	zadie:	May 15th, 2011 at 14:12 GMT		6 points
	I loved this! Thanks for giving us some time to think, too.

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	theillest2000:	May 15th, 2011 at 15:28 GMT		3 points
	@maaxwell: A negative times a negative is a positive!

	princessofb:	May 15th, 2011 at 15:34 GMT		2 points
	Excellent quiz. Fun and good for the ego!

	Cockroach:	May 15th, 2011 at 16:15 GMT		1 point
	Putting a space between "at" and "ease" killed me. Since when did Sporcle care about spaces?

	Mistakenblood:	May 15th, 2011 at 17:11 GMT		-1 points
	For some reason this quiz makes me want a banana

	ktappe:	May 15th, 2011 at 17:14 GMT		6 points
	I did not have to type a space between "AT" and "EASE". Not sure why several of you had to.

	ZardDog:	May 15th, 2011 at 17:16 GMT		4 points
	I could have used more time, but this was a highly enjoyable quiz. I thought Loam would be the 4 letter L word.

	monstro:	May 15th, 2011 at 18:23 GMT		3 points
	@manoftheworld: That's a "cryptic crossword," not a regular crossword. It's a completely different type of puzzle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptic_crossword

	TAR2:	May 15th, 2011 at 19:36 GMT		5 points
	I was enjoying this quiz until I had to start scrolling down to see the next clue and scrolling back up to type the answer. ANNOYING!

	Q_Pheevr:	May 15th, 2011 at 22:54 GMT		4 points
	@Rockgolf: That's cool! Of course, we'll know that Sporcle has really made it when it's well-known enough to be mentioned in a clue on a Monday... something to aspire to!

	burnsy:	May 15th, 2011 at 23:03 GMT		1 point
	You know why they use Ulee's Gold? Because of the vowels.

	atakdog:	May 15th, 2011 at 23:48 GMT		1 point
	A good idea, executed well. However, it would probably be best to avoid cases in which a (correct) shorter answer begins a (correct) longer one, as this makes it possible to get the shorter answer without knowing it. I see three instances of this phenomenon: lee and leer; nee and needle; and Reese and Reese's. It's particularly problematic in the case of N and R because the numbers suggest that in each case the longer answer may be "easier" (for many people) than the shorter, as the numbers of people getting the pairs are substantially the same even though it would be rare to get the longer but not the shorter (typically requiring very fast typing).

	montylaw:	May 16th, 2011 at 00:14 GMT		1 point
	Love this one, but need more time. Knew the answers, but couldn't type fast enough.

	rockgolf:	May 16th, 2011 at 01:10 GMT		5 points
	@Atakdog: I get your point, but I wanted to keep the list accurate. It would be like having a College Football quiz eliminate Florida because it comes up when you enter Florida State.

	atakdog:	May 16th, 2011 at 01:12 GMT		5 points
	@rockgolf: Oops, of course. For a sec I had forgotten that you didn't choose the words yourself. Duh.

	Photar:	May 16th, 2011 at 05:04 GMT		2 points
	@atakdog: I managed to get the 3 letter clue for R also because I knew the 6 letter answer and just had trouble spelling ;)

	jamesj0324:	May 16th, 2011 at 13:08 GMT		3 points
	The instructions state that "3- and 6-letter hints are straight definitions." The clue for 3 letter G clue is definitely not a straight definition, and the fact that it is the least guessed shows this. If you look at the source, the clue for gas actually includes a question mark (?), which indicates that the clue is playful.