Easy crossword puzzle

15x15 · 78 clues · Easy · free

A full 15x15 grid, sized down in difficulty rather than in squares. Every clue is a plain definition, and nothing here assumes you have solved a crossword before.

Download the PDFThe PDF is two pages: the blank grid with every clue, then the answer key.

Across

Down

Across

Down

Easy crossword puzzle

15x15, 78 clues, easy.

Across

1 A precious stone, or something valued highly
6 Worn around the waist to hold up pants
10 You write with it
13 A speech praising someone who has died
14 To make someone feel unwelcome or shut out
16 A meeting held over the internet with cameras on
18 Frozen water
19 A feeling of wonder and amazement
20 Sprayed with a self-defense spray
21 Not as much
23 Homes birds build in trees
26 Cheap, gaudy decoration, informally
27 A dangerous feat performed for a movie or show
29 Short for military or business operations
31 A barrel that holds beer
33 A casual way to say "no"
34 Painful to the touch
35 A period of time in history
36 What remains after something burns
39 Someone who settles a dispute
41 Common nickname for Sally or Salvatore
42 To view with your eyes
43 A dark, moody style of film: ___ film
44 How many years old someone is
46 The expected score on a golf hole
47 A place to relax and get pampered
48 Bargains, or agreements
51 Sticky fluid from a tree
53 S-shaped curves, as in a winding road
56 Part of a fishing rod, or to stagger
58 Informal shout to get someone's attention
60 An exclamation of triumph or surprise
61 Short for the name Anna
62 Ways of describing something as less serious than it really is
67 A 26.2-mile race
68 People who eat
69 Cleverly deceptive
70 To look for
71 Close to crying

Down

1 Liquids squeezed from fruit
2 The oldest child in a family
3 Great sorrow or trouble
4 One's sense of self-importance
5 A werewolf, in old folklore
6 Sources of trouble or ruin: the ___ of one's existence
7 A small mythical creature, often shown helping Santa
8 A statement that isn't true
9 A word or phrase, or a period like a school ___
10 Flat breakfast cakes cooked on a griddle
11 "And so on," in Latin
12 Something required
13 Deeply wrong or wicked
15 Tidy and organized
17 To be in debt for
22 The star at the center of our solar system
24 A short blast of a horn
25 A computer program with rows and columns for numbers
28 Soft flatbreads served with Indian food
30 A sturdy woven fabric used in suits
32 Informal word for a girl or woman
34 A polite way to address a man
36 A venomous snake
37 Happening only at certain times of the year
38 The design and study of family coats of arms
40 An unfair leaning toward one side
45 The body part you hear with
49 More thin, or tilting more to one side
50 A guard who watches over a place
52 An urgent request
54 The lower leg, or a cut of meat from it
55 To chew and swallow food
57 An informal word for a young woman, especially in Scotland
58 Makes a low musical sound with closed lips
59 Painting, music, and other creative fields
63 Pronoun for a female
64 A digit on your foot
65 A woman's first name, as in Mae West
66 The expected time of arrival, for short

What makes a crossword easy

It is not the grid. This one is the standard 15x15, the same size as a weekday newspaper puzzle, because a smaller grid would just be a different puzzle rather than an easier version of this one. What changes is the vocabulary and the clues: every answer here is a word most people already use, and every clue states plainly what the answer means. A clue ending in a question mark signals a pun, and none of these do. A clue that names a specific person, date or event is asking for trivia, and none of these do either.

Three answers are the exceptions worth naming rather than hiding: ANA and ESSES are real words but uncommon on their own, and LYCANTHROPE is simply the formal word for a werewolf. Each is clued as directly as the grid allows, and you will only meet the three of them once each across the whole puzzle.

If you are new to crosswords

Every white square belongs to two answers, one reading across and one reading down, and that overlap is what makes solving possible: a letter you are unsure of in one direction gets confirmed by whichever word crosses it. Start with the short answers. A three-letter clue only has so many likely answers, and filling one hands you a free letter in every answer crossing it.

You do not need to solve in order. Skip anything that will not come and return to it once the crossings around it are filled in; the puzzle gets easier as the grid fills, not harder. Autocheck marks a wrong letter the moment you type it, which some solvers like on while learning and others find distracting; it defaults to off, and you can turn it on from the board at any time.

Playing it, printing it, or both

The grid above plays in the browser with the same controls as every puzzle on this site: check a letter or the whole grid, reveal what you are stuck on, pencil in a guess you are not sure of yet, and pick up later from wherever you left off, since progress saves on this device as you go. The download is a two-page PDF: the blank grid with all 78 clues on the first page, the completed answers on the second, so you can print one copy to solve on paper and keep the other for afterward.

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