Here’s the traditional degree of difficulty for New York Times CROSSWORD PUZZLES by day of the week. This pattern has held for decades and is still the general rule:
Monday – Easiest Straightforward clues, familiar vocabulary, minimal trickery. Designed so anyone can finish.
Tuesday – Easy to Moderate A slight bump in difficulty; more wordplay begins to appear.
Wednesday – Moderate Often the “theme trick” day — rebuses, wordplay twists, visual or conceptual themes. A transition from easy to challenging.
Thursday – Hard The real knottiness begins. Known for complex themes and unusual mechanics (rebuses, grid tricks, pun-heavy clues). Many solvers consider Thursday the toughest themed puzzle of the week.
Friday – Harder, but themeless The start of the themeless puzzles. Difficulty comes from: • longer, crossing-laden fill • trickier cluing • fewer “gimmes”
Saturday – Hardest The most difficult puzzle of the week. Wide-open grids, no theme, extremely cryptic or oblique cluing. A stamina test.
Sunday – Medium–Hard but long Despite its intimidating size, Sunday is usually equivalent in difficulty to a Thursday — tricky but not brutal. The challenge comes more from length than clue complexity.
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