NYT Crossword Answers for Feb. 26, 2025

Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky Clues

WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Solving crosswords sometimes makes me feel as though I’m connecting to some communal store of knowledge, a place where idioms, bits of sports jargon, celebrity names and lesser-known abbreviations are held and can be drawn on as needed. There was certainly something instinctive about the way I solved today’s crossword, constructed by Dan Caprera, which hinges on a series of terms and phrases that are both familiar and entirely arbitrary. One special word connects them, and I think you’ll figure out what it is in short order. Well, maybe not so short.

Today’s Theme

If you’re utterly lost on how to proceed, that’s OK. When we last featured a theme like this, in a puzzle by Neville Fogarty from 2020, it appeared on a Thursday — a day with a reputation for challenging solves. So, while today’s grid may be Wednesday-level hard, its use of a rebus (in the sense that the word “long” is represented symbolically, rather than as a word itself) makes it Thursday-worthy, especially with no revealer.

The themed entries are 4-, 9-, 15- and 17-Down. The clue [What a stereotypical bartender asks after a horse walks into a bar] (15D) is a helpful way in, since the phrase it alludes to is well known: “Why the long face?” That’s not how the entry is written, though. Instead, we have WHY THE FFAACCEE? The word “face” is long, literally.

Here’s another example: The [Inspiration for a seafood chain] (4D) would normally be the well-known pirate Long John Silver, but it appears here as JJOOHHNN SILVER.

(I hope it doesn’t take you a TTIIMMEE to figure out the rest of these.)

Tricky Clues

14A. This entry makes waves whenever it appears because it uses a Latin plural. [Contents of some shots] are SERA, as in the plural of serum.