NYT Crossword Answers for March 28, 2025

Jump to: Tricky Clues

FRIDAY PUZZLE — It’s been nearly five months since we’ve seen a puzzle from Zhouqin Burnikel, and I, for one, am very glad she’s back. Ms. Burnikel has a way of filling her puzzles with lively entries and — for her late-in-the-week puzzles, where the high-wire walks happen — packing the clues with all sorts of twisty misdirection. In fact, I enjoyed the cluing in today’s puzzle so much that I’m going to address a larger-than-normal selection of the hints. I hope you admire them as much as I do.

And don’t forget to enjoy the triple stacks, both vertical and horizontal. All 12 entries are winners, and there is no junk in the grid at all.

This is Ms. Burnikel’s 81st crossword in The New York Times. I highly recommend savoring it.

Tricky Clues

11A. This [Story of a lifetime?] really encompasses an entire lifetime: It’s an OBIT.

15A. When a business is going down, it’s bad news for the owner. Not in this case, though. The [Sort whose business is going way down?] is a SCUBA DIVER, because divers make it their business to go way down into the sea.

25A. [Sinks one’s teeth into?] sounds as if we were supposed to be thinking about eating something delicious, but these teeth are those on a saw. The answer is SAWS UP.

28A. The worker in [Worker’s performance that informs the colony of a nearby nectar source] is not human, but a bee. And it performs a wiggly dance called a BEE DANCE, or waggle dance, that essentially says, “This way to the nectar.”