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What's an eight-letter word for a site that will destroy you?

Q. What's long, hard and pink in the morning?
A. The Financial Times crossword.

Describe "A game of using clues to fill in words and phrases into overlapping horizontal and vertical lines on a grid — 9 and 6 letters" here.

As a hobby in fiction, crossword puzzle solving shows that the character is intelligent and good with words—or wants people around him to think he is. Some common motifs are:

  1. The know-it-all who does his puzzle in ink.
  2. The character fills in a set of wrong words that have to do with the plotline; usually this is to show that they're distracted.
  3. The person who constantly asks the other person in the room, "What's a 11-letter word that means 'mercenary captain?'"note  Generally seen as someone who wants to be thought of as smart, but isn't quite making it. If they're asking, "What's a three-letter word that means 'feline?'", the character is meant to be not too bright at all.
  4. "Cheating" by looking in the next day's newspaper or the back of the magazine—absolute rotter.
  5. If the character does Sudoku instead, it connotes that the character is trendy and up on popular culture. Whether that's a good thing depends on context.
  6. If a character is a child, or at least easily amused, the character might do the Jumble.note 

Also see Hollywood Board Games (for Tabletop Game-based characterization), Smart People Play Chess, Genius Book Club, and Pastimes Prove Personality. Sub-Trope of Grid Puzzle, the general trope for puzzles solved by arranging the elements of a grid. Compare Magic Square Puzzle (a square array of integers that sum the same in each row, column, and main diagonal). Sometimes a crossword might either contain, or be part of, a metapuzzle.


Useful Notes:

The trope carries rather different cultural baggage depending on which side of The Pond you live on.
  • American crosswords are typically interlocking grids, with a theme for the lengthier answers, while the rest of the puzzle features vocabulary tests. An American doing a crossword is likely to be portrayed as being of slightly-above-average intelligence, especially if it's the New York Times crossword. (The crosswords featured in Harper's are Nintendo Hard, mostly because the clues are VERY obscurely worded and require a buttload of abstract thinking to decode.)
  • British crosswords resemble snaking mazes with clues that require a working knowledge of mythology and literature, with cryptic clues layered with double meanings (non-cryptic crosswords are known as "quickie" crosswords). A character seen completing The Times or The Guardian crossword (or, in extreme cases, the famously difficult ones in The Listener) will be very smart. In contrast, a character shown doing crosswords in The Sun or the Daily Mirror will be ridiculed.
  • In Finland, there exist six types of crossword puzzles:
    • Basic crossword: Similar to American crossword puzzle.
    • Illustrated crossword: The hints are small pictures embedded in the crossword puzzle. This is the most popular form in Finland.
    • Piilosana ("candid word")': The words are either anagrams, hidden within the hint text or read sdrawkcab within the hint. Hint phrases are usually obscure or lengthy to make the puzzle even more difficult.
    • Krypto (encrypted crossword): No hints are given, but each letter is denoted by a number. There is a picture to hint one word, with one letter code number given. (Known as "Codeword" or "Cross Reference" in English-speaking countries.)
    • Blind encrypted crossword: Similar to encrypted, but no hints whatsoever are given. This is considered the most difficult of all to solve.
    • Syllablic crossword: Each square takes in one syllable instead of a letter. "Words" usually are phrases or sentences.
  • In Poland, crosswords (unlike their English equivalents) are made up solely of nouns. Apart from basic crosswords, several other types are popular:
    • Jolka: Like a basic crossword, but the hints aren't numbered, and it's up to the solver to figure out where to write each answer.
    • Panorama/"panoramic crossword": Large crosswords which take up the whole page and have big squares. The hints are embedded directly inside the crossword (written into the "blank" squares, with a small arrow pointing towards where to write the answer). They're usually easy and feature a lot of short words. This variant likely originated in Scandinavia, and is known as the "arroword" in English-speaking countries.

Examples:

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    Advertisement 
  • One Jared commercial has the woman using a supposed crossword clue "what's a fourteen letter word for marriage proposal?" as a way of telling her mother that her fiancee went to Jared's.

    Anime and Manga 
  • In Spy X Family, when Anya is trying to convince Loid to adopt her, after he mentions he wants an intelligent child, she grabs the nearby newspaper and quickly fills in the crossword to impress him. However, she just used her telepathy to read his mind for the answers.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman: Black and White: In "A Black and White World", Batman and the Joker are Animated Actors who fight each other in comic books for a living but are friendly when they're not on set. In one scene, while they're waiting for their next scene to start, the Joker does a crossword puzzle to pass the time.
    Joker: "Ronald Reagan wasn't allowed into this White House." Ten letters. Ends in an "A".
    Batman: Casablanca.
  • In Batman: Hush, The Riddler is seen to do a crossword puzzle without the clues. He seems to think it makes him look really intelligent, but it shows him for the fool he is—the clues are there to tell the player what to think of. The finale reveals he used the inventor of the crossword puzzle's name - Arthur Wynne - as an alias when getting cancer treatment.
    • Origin stories for The Riddler have him displaying his first crime's clues on a city jumbotron in crossword puzzle form.
  • The Tick briefly gets a job writing (terrible) crosswords for The City's newspaper.
  • In one issue of Clive Barker's Hellraiser, the story "Wordsworth" by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean features a crossword puzzle, of The Game Plays You variety - its clues require increasingly sadistic actions to fill out - like "the sound a person makes when you drop a book on them" (and that is a mild example). Over the course of completing the crossword, the protagonist is slowly transformed into a Cenobite themselves.

    Fanfiction 
  • A Tenchi Muyo! fanfic has one character working out a crossword to show her intelligence, playing the trope itself straight. (Japanese crossword puzzles being done in hiragana or katakana (phonetic writing), of course.)

    Film 
  • In the movie Trapped In Paradise, a priest uses them to pass the time during confession.
  • Played with in Hot Fuzz. The landlady of the inn Nicholas Angel is staying at is reading out the description of a strong-armed authoritarian form of government (or something to that effect) while he, a strong-armed authoritarian police officer, is making his way in. Angel turns it around on her. Humourously called back in the final shoot out when they are used as insults.
    Landlady: Fascist!
    Angel: I beg your pardon?
    Landlady: [doing a crossword puzzle] System of government categorized by extreme dictatorship. Seven across.
    Angel: Actually that's fascism.
    Landlady: Fascism! Wonderful.
    Angel: Hag!
    Landlady: I beg your pardon?
    Angel: Evil old woman considered frightful or ugly, 12 down.
    Landlady: [thinks about it] Oh... bless you!
  • The Coneheads movie had them confusing a crossword puzzle with their own language.
  • In the movie The Strange Case Of The End Of Civilization As We Know It, descendants of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson have a Hurricane of Puns version of the continually asking conversation:
    Watson: 1 Across. A simple source of citrus fruit, 1, 5, 4.
    Holmes: A lemon tree, my dear Watson.
    Watson: 2 Down. Conservative pays ex-wife maintenance. 7, 4.
    Holmes: Alimony... alimony Tory, my dear Watson.
  • The documentary Wordplay revolves around the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and the oddballs who compete in it; it also features interviews with celebrity crossword buffs like Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole and Ken Burns.
  • The Ocean's Eleven remake provides a subversion of 2. Bernie Mac's character fills in a crossword with details of an overheard conversation while in an employee breakroom. But he's not distracted, he's taking notes covertly for later nefarious deeds.
  • In All About Steve, the heroine is a crossword compiler whose infatuation with a TV news cameraman leads to her expulsion from the newspaper office where she worked.
  • Dan in Real Life takes place during an annual family reunion. The family has a tradition of a competition between the men and the women to fill out the newspaper crossword first. This is used as evidence of the eponymous protagonist's skill with words (since the family credits Dan as the reason the men usually win) and establishes the Love Interest as Dan's equal (since the women win with her there).
  • In Sideways, Miles is seen working on the New York Times crossword a couple of times (actual published puzzles from 2003). A few reviews pointed out that he was filling them out in pen, a sign of his Insufferable Genius personality, but the actor later admitted that he just used what the prop department gave him, and didn't think there was that much meaning to it.
  • The Harold Lloyd film 'The Freshman gives Lloyd's character and his love interest a Meet Cute involving one of these as they ride a train together.
  • In On the Basis of Sex, Ruth Ginsburg has to fend off Moritz' mother who keeps interjecting the hint over the conversation (Type 3). Ruth figures it out (Egg laying Australian, 8 letters, which is platypus) quieting her down and impressing Mr Moritz in the process.
  • In North Sea Hijack someone sarcastically accuses the hero of being "one of those people who can do the Times crossword in ten minutes". The hero is offended and replies that it has never taken him that long.

    Literature 
  • Adrian Mole sees Ivan Braithwaite doing the difficult crossword - he does the quick one while he waits for the kettle to boil.
  • In the Young Bond novel Double or Die, a kidnapped teacher/crossword compiler plants clues to his abduction in his final cryptic crossword.
  • Discworld
    • The Ankh-Morpork Times, founded in The Truth, has a British-style cryptic crossword written by the pseudonomous "Puzzler",note  one of the only people on the Disc who can regularly flummox Lord Vetinari. Vetinari enjoys the pastime but keeps his most likely suspect for "Puzzler" under discreet observation.
    • Feet of Clay implies that crossword puzzles predate the Ankh-Morpork Times, as Vimes compares the references Heralds work into coats-of-arms as "crossword clues". (Alternatively, it's a case of Orphaned Etymology.)
    • By Making Money, the Times has introduced Sudoku under the name "Jikan no Muda". The name itself can be translated as "Waste of Time" and Vetinari views it as far simpler than the crossword. Fittingly, "words versus numbers" is a minor theme of this book, with Vetinari and Moist preferring words, and Mr. Bent preferring numbers.
  • James P. Hogan's Giants' Star includes a cryptic crossword used to sneak information from Earth to the Ganymede base.
  • Characterization-by-crossword in "Swellhead" by Kim Newman: Two of the characters have subscriptions to a high-end crossword magazine that "scorned newspaper distribution. The publishers set an entrance exam for the subscription list, charging on a sliding scale, lower price for higher grades." One character, who has a pretentious streak and an inflated opinion of himself, pays £1,000 a year for the privilege of being counted a subscriber. The other, to whom he considers himself superior, gets his for free.
  • Isaac Asimov's YA mystery "The Key Word" hides the keyword for a cipher in the New York Times crossword.
  • In "The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager's Will", a Lord Peter Wimsey story by Dorothy L. Sayers, the eponymous uncle leaves behind an extremely arcane crossword puzzle that must be solved to obtain the inheritance. The puzzle itself is reproduced at the end of the story, for any readers who want to try and solve it themselves.
  • Inspector Morse is a fan of cryptic crosswords. Several of his novels give a crossword clue early in the book, and reveal the answer in a later chapter.
  • The third Harry Potter book would have been something of a drag if not for Sirius Black's fondness for crossword puzzles.
  • Played with in the Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures: Fitz is extremely good at crossword puzzles. He's probably cleverer than average, but not that brainy. His secret? He's an Artificial Human; for some reason, even though he wishes he'd got immortality for his trouble, he just developed a knack for crosswords and anagrams.note 
    • In the Doctor Who New Adventures/Sherlock Holmes crossover novel All-Consuming Fire, the Third Doctor is doing the Times crossword in the Silent Room of the Diogenes Club (the crossword hasn't been invented yet, but he's got a newspaper from the future). The Seventh Doctor holds up a sign with one of the answers on it, causing Third to exclaim in annoyance and be ejected.
  • The crossword mystery series by Nero Blanc is Uncle Meleager's Will in spades.
  • The series The Puzzle Lady is about a crossword puzzle writer who solves murders.
  • One Inspector Allhoff mystery story has a guest character mention that he's a crossword puzzle fan who reads a particular paper. Allhoff slips words from the previous day's puzzle into the conversation and when the man fails to react, correctly concludes that the visitor is a liar.
  • The Dean Koontz's Frankenstein series contains Randal Six, an Artificial Human designed with autism who finds comfort in crosswords (imposing the order of letters in empty boxes soothes his anxiety). He escapes his cell by mentally turning the floor tile into crossword letters. When the tiles run out, he closes his eyes and draws crossword grids on the floor, and later learns that he can move freely for some reason when pushing a shopping cart.
  • In American Psycho, Patrick Bateman fills in one crossword with "meat" and "bone", over and over again, because he's slipping.
  • In Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Smiley spots a London Times crossword filled out completely, in ink, in the apartment of a psychologically disintegrating but still-sharp former operative.
  • Norah in Bride of the Rat God finds American crosswords easier than the British ones.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The title character of Inspector Morse is very good at cryptic crosswords, and often uses this ability to solve some of the more fiendishly difficult crimes that come his way. This continues in the prequel series Endeavour. Colin Dexter, the man who wrote the original novels, was also a crossword compiler and even wrote a non-fiction book called Cracking Cryptic Crosswords, a guide on how to solve cryptic crosswords.
  • Amy Santiago in Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a crossword enthusiast, to the point that when she gets to solve a case with a writer of the NYT crossword, she behaves like a crazed fangirl.
  • Michael Westen in Burn Notice sometimes receives messages from the mysterious organization that burned him in the form of crossword puzzles.
  • Used comically in the Seinfeld episode "The Pez Dispenser". At the end, George asks Jerry, "What's a three-letter word for candy?" Jerry says, "Sorry, I don't know."
  • On Fraggle Rock, Madame Trashheap was working on a crossword and needed a 11-letter word for life of the party. The answer, she claims, is her uncle Maximilian (spelt with a silent Q).
  • The game show The Cross Wits had celebrities and contestants competing to solve miniaturized crosswords given clues.
  • Merv Griffin's Crosswords was somewhat similar to the above, only full-size crosswords were used instead.
  • People Puzzler does the same, involving larger crosswords in the front game and a trio of small ones in the bonus round.
  • The third round of Biblical game show Virtual Memory involved filling one in.
  • In Season 34, Wheel of Fortune introduced the Crossword Round, a random puzzle in any of the first three rounds which is composed of three to five interlocking words, all of which have a common theme that is stated at the beginning of the round in lieu of the game's usual categories.
  • Jeopardy! regularly uses "Crossword Clues [letter]" as a category, where each clue is phrased as a crossword puzzle clue, and all five responses begin with the same letter.
  • The Joker's Wild also had a "Crossword Definitions" category, illustrated by a partial crossword grid with three words entered.
  • In Oliver's Travels, one of Oliver's friends is a crossword compiler who went into hiding after a run-in with the villain, and at one point Oliver finds a secret message in the crossword he's just completed that reveals the villain's identity.
  • In one episode of M*A*S*H, Hawkeye gets in hot water when his telephoned request for a Navy acquaintence's help on a crossword puzzle is mistaken for a real distress call.
  • Heroes uses a crossword to introduce Charlie's superpower of perfect memory. The sheriff struggling with the puzzle says he wants to shoot Will Shortz, perplexing the large fraction of the viewing public that doesn't know the name of the New York Times crossword editor.
  • One episode of Monk has Adrian Monk investigating a quintuple homicide at a barbershop. He concludes that a partially concluded crossword puzzle found by one of the waiting area's chairs belonged to the killer, who had to have been in a hurry if he left his puzzle behind. It's a Chekhov's Gun, as Monk determines that a certain U.S. Mint employee is responsible after noticing that said guy does crossword puzzles.
  • Leo McGarry on The West Wing reveals himself to be a fan of the New York Times crossword in the show's pilot when he complains about an inaccurate clue. In a different episode, President Bartlet asks his wife for help solving the day's puzzle while preparing for a social event. The puzzle mentioned in the show had previously run in the paper, and papers that syndicate the puzzle with a six-week delay ran it on the day the episode premiered.
  • In an episode of Jonathan Creek, a psychic approaches a widow and tells her that her dead husband will answer five questions. Because her late husband had been good at crosswords, she demands that his ghost solve a clue from the day's crossword for her, and he does. Of course, con artists can be good at crosswords too...
  • In a fifth-season episode of Angel, a doctor is shown asking his receptionist for a random clue for him to solve. This happens twice and he's unable to solve either of them, asking "give me another one". The doctor ends up being somewhere between incompetent and evil.
  • Friends:
    • In "The One With The Evil Orthodontist":
      Ross: "Heating device."
      Phoebe: "Radiator."
      Ross: Five letters.
      Phoebe: ...Rdtor.
    • In "The One With The Dirty Girl," Rachel wants to try and complete a crossword puzzle without anyone's help, and struggles with the thing the entire episode. It drives her crazy, but in the end she finishes it (even if she has to rather obliquely ask Chandler the 1996 Best Musical Tony winner, Rent).
    • In "The One with the Interview", Rachel finds that Joey is an answer in the newest Soap Opera Digest crossword for his role on the in-universe version of Days of Our Lives.
  • Stargate SG-1 features an episode where, after O'Neill downloads the entire Ancient database into his brain (again), he fills in crossword spaces with what appears to be random gibberish, but are actually terms in Ancient. Then again, he also answers the clue "celestial body" with "Uma Thurman"... But that's Jack O'Neill for you.
  • The fourth season of Stranger Things opens with a man (whose face is not shown) going through his morning routine, including retrieving his newspaper, setting a timer, and completing the crossword before it goes off, suggesting that the mystery man has both high intelligence and a healthy ego. He turns out to be Dr. Martin Brenner, who fits the bill on both counts.
  • An episode of Bottom begins with the main characters, deprived of the television which provides most of their usual entertainment, attempting to do a crossword. They are spectacularly bad at it; it's never revealed exactly what crossword they're doing, but since they're both exceptionally stupid it doesn't really matter anyway.
  • Used in Supernatural. A girl Sam meets during his 10-Minute Retirement is impressed with his ability to complete the New York Times puzzle.
  • Steptoe and Son: Albert Steptoe's contribution to the Parish Magazine.
  • In an episode of Corner Gas, a Tarot card reader refers to the 18th letter of the alphabet and Wanda immediately says, "R!" Everyone looks at her strangely and she says, "I do thirty crosswords a day."
  • The closing credit tag for one Community episode has Abed helping Troy with one. Oddly, all of the answers appear to be the names of the study group members.
  • The very first episode of The Big Bang Theory has Leonard complete a crossword in a few seconds as an Establishing Character Moment (here).
  • A sketch on The Two Ronnies featured a train compartment full of commuters working on their crosswords and being continually interrupted by Ronnie Corbett's character who was struggling with his (ridiculously easy) crossword. The final punchline involves him agreeing to shut up if Ronnie Barker's character helps him solve the final clue: "Found at the bottom of a bird cage; 4 letters; something, something, i, t". Barker tells him the answer is "grit". On hearing this, a nun seated in the compartment suddenly goes "Oh! Grit!" and hurriedly crosses out her own (unseen) answer.
  • In One Foot in the Grave's Bottle Episode, "The Trial", Victor Meldrew tries to pass the time while waiting for a possible call for jury service by attempting a cryptic crossword. Of course, being both a Butt-Monkey and a Deadpan Snarker, he finds himself facing such clues as "Elk's ego gets my goat; head of MI5 upset the French by reversing into Dad's underpants - it's a doddle", and finally snapping, "I'm sorry, I don't seem to be able to do the crossword today, as I appear to be temporarily out of mind-bending drugs!"
  • Nick from Barney Miller is occasionally seen doing crosswords. Since he's ethnically Japanese, he's doing the crosswords in the New York City Japanese paper, so he'll ask things like "What's a 6 letter word for 'Ming-yaaa-beh?'"
    • In another Barney Miller episode, Barney asks Dietrich (The Smart Guy) for help on a six-letter word meaning 'occupation on the floss' because 'dentist' has seven letters. There's a novel ''The Mill on the Floss', so the answer could be 'miller', Barney's last name.
  • In Inside No. 9, episode "The Riddle of the Sphinx", the story centres upon a cryptic crossword and the Cambridge Don who had set it. The crossword itself, written by Steve Pemberton, appeared in the Guardian Here so you can solve it yourselves!
  • Barry in The Smoking Room whiles his break times away doing crossword puzzles, usually getting the answers wrong and asking Robin for help.
    Robin: 5 across is "impel."
    Barry: Eh?
    Robin:, "Egg on", five letters — "impel". Not "toast".
  • Fletcher is occupying his time with one in an episode of Porridge, and isn't doing particularly well. When Godber starts giving unwelcome hints, solving the clue for a bird with four letters starting with "R" and ending with "K" as "rook", Fletcher goes on the defensive and suggests it could be "rilk" instead. He then proceeds to invent details about the habits of his fictional bird:
    Fletcher: A "rilk" is a migratory bird from the North Baltic shores of Finland. Its main distinguishing feature is that it flies backwards to keep the sh- the snow out of its eyes.
  • The Wire: Omar Little's knowledge of Greek mythology is shown before he testifies at Bird's trial, when he helps the bailiff with a crossword puzzle clue, explaining that the Greek god of war is called Ares. He mentions that he was fascinated by Greek mythology in middle school.
  • In an episode of House, House can tell that a woman is a liar because he notices her puzzle has the non-word "swoft" filled in and realizes she's not as smart as she claims to be.
    • Another episode has House claim that his associates are doing research. We then see Chase asking about an apparently medically-themed crossword and Foreman disinterestedly giving him the answer.
  • An episode of 21 Jump Street begins with Doug asking about a crossword clue. Harry gives him a word to use. When Doug later asks for a much harder clue and Harry knows that answer, too, Doug is incredulous. Harry tells him that he has yesterday's crossword puzzle and that Harry's been giving him answers from the printed solution in the current paper.
  • In one episode of Ugly Betty, a supermodel is shown easily solving a Rubik's cube and asking for the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle to show she's Pretty Smart For A Hottie.
  • Radio Enfer: Jean-Lou decides to do some of those in one episode to forget about his worries. The episode ends with him trying to solve the last crossword puzzle he has, which is an eight-letter word describing someone "who acts or talks foolishly". Carl and Vincent (who are angry that Jean-Lou revealed to Jocelyne that Carl wasn't depressed at all, thus preventing them from getting anything they wanted) decide to give him the answer by simultaneously yelling "IMBECILE!" to him.

    Newspaper Comics 
  • One Calvin and Hobbes strip featured Calvin attempting to solve a crossword puzzle. He was not very good at it.
    Calvin: Number Three across says "bird"... I've got it! "Yellow-bellied sapsucker!"
    Hobbes: But there are only five boxes.
    Calvin: I know. These idiots make you write real small.
  • Blondie (1930): The titular character is often depicted doing a crossword while Dagwood watches television as they sit in the living room. (In later years she switched to sudoku instead.)
  • A Sunday Strip of Moon Mullins had Kayo writing his own crossword. Lord Plushbottom commented that it must be very hard; Kayo said, "Nah, it's easy." Kayo showd LP the crossword with answers such as "RJHIEPOQ" and "VZK". Kayo said, "Making the crossword is easy. What's hard is writing the clues."
  • FoxTrot has featured several that Jason composed for the sole purpose of insulting Paige.
  • Garfield:
    • February 17, 1979: Jon works on a crossword puzzle and asks Garfield for a six-letter word for "pain." Jon answers with his Written Roar of "ARRRGH!!!" after Garfield smashes his hand.
    • A January 2010 arc had Jon try to finish a morning Sudoku puzzle and struggle severely. Liz completes hers over one morning, and Odie does it in just a few seconds flat.
    Jon: I may have figured out what "Sudoku" means... I think it's Japanese for "AAAARRRGGHHH!!"
    Garfield: Hey, that was in my crossword puzzle!

    Puzzles 
  • A complex wordplay puzzle that ran in Games Magazine, "Escape from the Dungeon," tasked the player with finding a weapon in a fantasy dungeon. A very small crossword puzzle was found in one room on a paper scroll. The puzzle was solvable (one clue was impossible to get, but could be deduced from the others and from the context), but that wasn't really the point. The point was to take the crossword to a magician who removed letters from the fronts of words. Removing the C-R-O-S left you with a sword, completing the overall puzzle.

    Radio 
  • I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue: The chairman comments on crosswords thus:
    Humph: It seems that soon Sudoku will all but wipe out traditional games, such as the Telegraph's cryptic crossword, in which you have to solve such brain-teasers as "Erasmus enigmatically produces visceral calisthenic (18 letters)" to win a book token, or the Sun's "Furry animal that meows (3 letters - first letter C, last letter T, middle letter A)" which if a Sun reader gets it right wins them a speed boat.

    Theatre 
  • One song from Starting Here, Starting Now follows a woman filling out a crossword puzzle and pondering her recent break-up, since they always used to do the crossword together. It turns out that she always got the answers before he did, and he left her for a floozy who didn't threaten his intelligence.

    Video Games 
  • Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent: While none of the puzzles in the game directly involve crosswords, Nelson is shown to be a fan of crossword puzzles. He also uses a crossword as a distraction when Sheriff Bahg, who is as puzzle-crazed as the other citizens of Scoggins, has him at gunpoint.
  • The Pandora Directive has one which gets you $100 the day after you send it in. You really need the money, too.
  • Doing the crossword in The Sims 2 increases the sims' logic skill.
  • In Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, Subaru finishes a puzzle, even though she was just asked to help with one clue, in order to show she was being the designated Jerkass in that part of the game.
  • Lexi-Cross combined Wheel of Fortune with The Cross-Wits.
  • In Undertale, one of Sans' "puzzles" is a word search. After it completely fails to stop the player, Sans and Papyrus get into a brief argument over whether a crossword puzzle or the Junior Jumble is harder, and you're asked to weigh in on the issue.
  • Persona 5: You can solve crossword puzzles in the cafe on certain days. The player is given 20 letters to complete the puzzle, although only one word needs to be filled in; the rest just serve as clues and to eliminate possible letters. If you find the right word, you're given a trivia fact about it, and your Knowledge stat increases.
  • Jim Chapman of Resident Evil: Outbreak is introduced doing a crossword puzzle next to the window of J's Bar before he's startled by the sudden zombie viral outbreak. A crossword magazine is one of his SP items in the "Hellfire" scenario, too.

    Web Animation 

    Webcomics 
  • Doctor Beetle of Girl Genius used to use crossword puzzles in his classes at Transylvania Polygnostic University. Agatha does not clarify if they were a part of larger tests or quizzes used on their own.
  • Nothing Nice to Say featured a short appearance of a crossword puzzle where all the words are RoboCop.
  • It's used similarly in Fans! to establish Hilda as a bona fide genius when she does the New York Times crossword. In pen. Strictly from the bottom up. While conducting a job interview. Because it helps her relax.
    • The "Crossover" arc is set up as a crossword puzzle at the end, with dialogue-free frames as the black squares, and the first letter in each square with dialogue as part of the puzzle's solution. The arc deals with a crossword puzzle convention, and also deals with Hilda's recent PTSD regarding crosswords. in a previous arc, Feddyg had kidnapped Hilda and tortured her by strapping a net to her face. The net resembled a crossword grid, so now thanks to Feddyg, she began to equate crossword puzzles with torture.
    • T Campbell is himself a crossword fan, and occasionally constructs crossword puzzles with clues taken from Fans, from Penny and Aggie and from various Science Fiction works by other creators.
  • User Friendly now includes a relatively simple, geek-themed crossword every Sunday.

    Western Animation 
  • An episode of Batman: The Animated Series uses crosswords for an interesting form of Shout-Out (do we have Signing Your Work or something like that?), where the words filled into the crossword are actually the names of writers and artists who worked on the episode.
    • Justice League Unlimited episode "To Another Shore" lampshades this, with Green Arrow mentioning that Mr. Terrific can run the Watchtower and do the Sunday New York Times crossword. When Mr. Terrific mentions he's finished the crossword already, Green Arrow teases, "You did it in ink again, didn't you?"
  • Something similar to the third variation: Rugrats featured one of the parents calling a crossword-puzzle help line, and we could see that the words he was filling in horizontally spelled "D-U-M-B" vertically.
  • The Simpsons:
    • In "Today I Am a Clown", Bart reassures Krusty that he's successful because his name was used in the People magazine crossword. The clue: a 6-letter phrase for "unfunny clown."
    • "Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words" is an episode where Lisa becomes an expert cruciverbalist, inspired by the documentary Wordplay. Will Shortz and Merl Reagle have a cameo, and the Sunday puzzle featured in the episode ran in that Sunday's New York Times.
  • In the Christmas Special "The Twelve Days of Christmas", a squire is charged with swiping the wishlist of the princess, so that a knight can present her with her heart's desire and win her love. But the squire accidentally swiped the answer sheet for the Royal Crossword Puzzle, and so the princess ends up receiving 1 partridge, 2 calling birds, 3 french hens, etc. The princess actually gets quite annoyed with the gifts, but her father asks her to let the squire keep bringing them because each gift gives him the answer for the crossword.
  • Xiaolin Showdown
    Jack Spicer: What's a four-letter word for "idiot"?
    Wuya: "Jack".
    Jack Spicer: ...Perfect.
  • In The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, Sheen is shown to be doing a crossword puzzle in ink in the episode where his brainpower is increased. When Cindy points out that it's not that impressive since her dad does the same thing, Sheen reveals that the crossword puzzle is from the Beijing Times.
  • In SpongeBob SquarePants, Mr. Krabs answers "money" in all five-letter word clues.
  • In Phineas and Ferb's "Tip of the Day," Lawrence is doing a tip-related crossword, asking Linda, who answers obscure ones (Elbow-ulna for example). He only gets stuck on the tip of a shoelace (An aglet, the episode's plot point).
  • Regular Show: In "More Smarter", Rigby becomes temporarily hyper-intelligent and mocks Mordecai by doing a crossword puzzle, asking for an eight-letter word for "idiot". After considering "imbicile", "bonehead", "peabrain", he puts "Mordecai". Mordecai is offended and calls him a "dumbface". Rigby notes that the word does fit the clue, but deems it too stupid for the puzzle.

Alternative Title(s): Crossword

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