NYT Crossword Answers for May 21, 2024

Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky Clues

TUESDAY PUZZLE — Before today, I had already written about three of the six crossword puzzles that Zachary David Levy constructed for The New York Times. This being his seventh puzzle, I can now say that I’ve gotten to solve over half of them. But this was merely a fraction (yuk yuk) of the reason that I perked up at the sight of Mr. Levy’s byline. Having seen him rhyme and road-trip his way through previous grids, I knew I could expect a good deal of whimsy in today’s puzzle. And, despite muddling through a few surprisingly tough clues, I was not disappointed.

So, what did you think? Did today’s solve make you feel especially young at heart?

Today’s Theme

Of the four theme entries cited in the revealer clue, I found 52A’s “Counterpart to a landline” to be the easiest to solve (even if landlines may have fallen out of fashion) — MOBILE PHONE. After that came CRIB NOTES, at 17A. Because we know that the “starts” of themed entries are keys to Mr. Levy’s theme, we can focus on MOBILE and CRIB.

To “Make safer, in a way” (63A) is to BABY-PROOF. Without a hyphen, this phrase becomes a clever description of “the starts of 17-, 27-, 38- and 52-Across”: a MOBILE and CRIB are both evidence of a newborn’s presence. Ditto the beginning of a “Fruit also known as calabash” (27A), called a BOTTLE GOURD, and a final first word you can reveal below.

Tricky Clues

9A. “Lightens (up)” looks as if it’s already a full phrase, but this clue wants us to find a word that means “Lightens” when followed by the word “up.” The answer is EASES.