NYT Crossword Answers for April 29, 2025

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TUESDAY PUZZLE — The first play on words I ever made (as far as I can remember, anyway) was at the dinner table, at the age of 5 or so. We were having grilled salmon, and I had noticed a piece of fish on my plate that seemed to be shaped like a cigar. I picked it up and pretended to puff on it. “Look!” I shouted. “Smoked salmon!”

Notwithstanding the disturbing notion of a kindergartner aspiring to a cigar habit, I’d say this was pretty clever. I couldn’t have known at the time that my sense of humor would lead to a career in crosswords, but an entry in today’s puzzle, constructed by Gene Louise de Vera, felt all too cosmic: At 5A, indeed, to be [Like cigar and salmon] is to be SMOKED. Just as the prophecy foretold.

Today’s Theme

[Early struggles for a new enterprise] are known as GROWING PAINS, and in this puzzle the phrase also serves as [a hint to the shaded squares] of entries at 28D, 29D, 32D and 34D. Here are those squares, in bold below:

At 28D, the phrase [“You had your chance”] means that it’s TOO LATE NOW. At 29D, if you [Go berserk], you HIT THE ROOF. Starting to see a pattern? We’ve got “ow” and “oof,” both of which are expressions of pain. And we can confirm the hunch with the remaining entries — an [Instruction to improve posture] is DON’T SLOUCH at 32D, and at 34D, a typical [Cameraperson’s session] is a PHOTO SHOOT. Note that each shaded word “grows” by one letter as we move from left to right.

My exclamations of pain also include “Oy!” and “Ack!” along with a number of grawlix-worthy terms I won’t share in this column. If you have any (clean) expressions of your own to add to our GROWING PAINS lexicon, feel free to do so in the comments. Also, at 34D: Is the growing pain “SHOOT” because it’s what one exclaims, or because it’s shooting pain? I welcome your opinions on this, too.

Tricky Clues

25A. This [Blues group, for short?] is political, rather than musical, and “blues” describes a color, not a type of music, associated with the group itself. The answer is DNC, short for Democratic National Committee.