NYT Crossword Answers for March 20, 2025

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THURSDAY PUZZLE — All I can say is, “Wow.” Normally, I don’t appreciate someone who pushes personal boundaries, but, by all means, please push crossword construction boundaries. And that’s exactly what Daniel Grinberg, the constructor of today’s puzzle, has done. This is a very elegant execution inside a 15×15 grid, a seemingly impossible feat to pull off without sacrificing much of the fill.

On most Thursdays, the constructors and editors can let their collective hair down after a few days of relatively straightforward puzzles and present crosswords that make us use our lateral thinking skills. Lateral thinking is a form of creative problem solving and, when applied to puzzle solving, is best demonstrated when we ask ourselves, “What else could this clue or entry mean?”

This is Mr. Grinberg’s eighth crossword in The New York Times, and he really impressed me with this one. I’ll wait until the theme section to spill the beans, but a word of advice: Once you’ve solved this puzzle, go back and look at it again. There’s more to it than is apparent.

Today’s Theme

I’m going to discuss Mr. Grinberg’s theme, but first a story.

Once upon a time (i.e., after 1993, when Will Shortz became editor of the Times Crossword), there were maybe two Schrödinger puzzles in The Times’s archive. In a Schrödinger puzzle, each theme entry can have two possible correct answers in the same slot that differ by one or more letters, and the crossing answers work with either entry. They were difficult to make, so not many constructors bothered with them.

On Nov. 5, 1996, Jeremiah Farrell had a puzzle published that somehow magically predicted who would win the United States presidential election, but the puzzle would be correct no matter who won. And everyone who had solved the puzzle collectively lost their minds.