{"id":359479,"date":"2026-09-29T03:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T03:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/359479\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T03:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T03:30:13","slug":"nyt-crossword-answers-for-sept-29-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/359479\/","title":{"rendered":"NYT Crossword Answers for Sept. 29, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

TUESDAY PUZZLE<\/a> \u2014 Just a few months after I started writing for the Wordplay column, Hanh Huynh made his New York Times Crossword debut with a Thursday rebus puzzle that was easily the hardest crossword I\u2019d solved to date. Granted, I was new, but it was still embarrassing to be undone by a puzzle so early in my tenure.<\/p>\n

Once I got to spend a little more time<\/a> inside Mr. Huynh\u2019s brain<\/a>, I started to appreciate his cleverness and looked forward to seeing his constructor byline. Today\u2019s crossword by Mr. Huynh is a not-too-chewy Tuesday whose theme makes for a sly reveal. And if anyone knows of any reason this puzzle should not be solved \u2026 well, give it a go, anyway.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Theme<\/p>\n

I love themes that you have to unlace a little to appreciate. The [Wedding officiant\u2019s directive] at 58-Across is JOIN HANDS, a phrase that supposedly doubles as a description of what \u201cboth halves\u201d of 17-, 25-, 35- and 50-Across do. To start, let\u2019s solve those entries.<\/p>\n

[Where some monster home runs land], at 17A, is the UPPER DECK. 25A\u2019s [Pretty long time, in an idiom] is a HOT MINUTE. [Another plateful from the buffet, say], at 35A, is a SECOND HELPING, and the [Position of Rickey Henderson in M.L.B.] at 50A was LEFT FIELD (he died in 2024<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Each word of these entries appears with \u201chand\u201d in a common expression: upper hand, deckhand, hot hand, minute hand and so on. Thus, the two-word terms represent \u201cjoined\u201d hands. Eh? Eh?<\/p>\n

Tricky Clues<\/p>\n

9A\/10D. This is a clever crossing of two entries that look the same but aren\u2019t. The [British John] across refers to a person \u2014 ELTON \u2014 while the [British john] is a British-English term for a bathroom, LOO.<\/p>\n

16A. Trick question: [Who \u201cwants to be defeated\u201d in \u201cBeat It\u201d]? NO ONE. They\u2019re all too busy showing how funky and strong is their fight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

49A. The name of the [Greek goddess of the Earth] can be spelled more than one way. In this puzzle, it\u2019s GAEA. In other puzzles, it\u2019s \u201cGaia.\u201d<\/p>\n

5D. [Always at the pharmacy?] uses what\u2019s known as a \u201cveiled capital,\u201d which is to say that the first word of the clue is a proper noun \u2014 in this case, a brand of PADS \u2014 even though it looks like a common one.<\/p>\n

26D. Some might argue that the solution for [Just between us], ON THE D.L. (down-low), should have been indicated as slang<\/a> in the wording of the clue. I can neither confirm nor deny that I am among the \u201csome.\u201d<\/p>\n

34D. Plural clues generally indicate plural entries. But [Scanned lines, for short] refers to the collected lines of a universal product code, or U.P.C. \u2014 also known as a bar code \u2014 so it doesn\u2019t need an S at the end.<\/p>\n

45D. My first guess at the entry for [Infer (from)] was \u201cdeduce\u201d because that\u2019s the only way I\u2019d refer to inferring. The correct answer, however, is DERIVE, a word that can mean either taking from a source or, less commonly, deducing information.<\/p>\n

Improve Your Crossword Solving<\/p>\n

Work your way through our guide \u201cHow to Solve the New York Times Crossword<\/a>.\u201d It contains an explanation of most of the types of clues you will see in the puzzles and a practice Mini at the end of each section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TUESDAY PUZZLE \u2014 Just a few months after I started writing for the Wordplay column, Hanh Huynh made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[44226,41568,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-359479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-crossword-puzzles","tag-games","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}