NYT Crossword Answers for March 21, 2025

Jump to: Tricky Clues

FRIDAY PUZZLE — Some crossword constructors try to limit the number of black squares they use in order to make room for those long, exciting entries that delight and surprise us when we solve them. I don’t know about you, but I smiled when I filled in 2D and 10D, both 15-letter grid spanners. The rest of the fill was very lively as well.

Boaz Moser and Jacob Reed collaborated on today’s puzzle, and they make a good team. Mr. Moser constructed the grid and Mr. Reed wrote the original clues, although many were changed by the puzzle editors, as he mentions in his constructor notes. That’s a very common occurrence, and I think the larger collaboration between the constructor and the editors makes for a very nice way to open our solving weekend.

Tricky Clues

21A. A gratuity, or TIP, is generally not expected in Japan in the same way it is for servers in the United States.

23A. When baseball coaches say [It’s a short walk from home], they are referring to FIRST BASE.

43A. I wasn’t sure what MO-CAP stood for when I used the crossings to fill in MO-CAP SUIT as the answer to [Attire often used in filming C.G.I. scenes, informally]. It is a shorthand way of referring to a motion capture suit, which looks like this.

47/48A. The liquid droplets called ICE RAIN and its cousin, sleet, reach the Earth in the same way: They both fall through a layer of warm air into a layer of freezing air that hugs the ground. If that freezing layer is thick, the droplets have time to freeze before impact and are called sleet. If it is thin, the droplets do not have time to freeze and become ICE RAIN.