Thomas Joseph Crossword Answers
- 1 Edison’s -- Park
- 6 “It’s a Wonderful Life” director Frank
- 11 Archery item
- 12 Pacific, for one
- 13 Sketched
- 14 Depart
- 15 Vend
- 17 Put in stitches
- 18 Jefferson or Lincoln, in Washington
- 22 Eager
- 23 Steamy
- 27 Pine product
- 29 Porkers
- 30 Followed as a result
- 32 Magnetic metal
- 33 Washington, in Washington
- 35 Enjoy the slopes
- 38 Reading aid
- 39 Bean-bearing tree
- 41 Baseball’s Judge
- 45 By the side of
- 46 Get a goal
- 47 Bandleader Goodman
- 48 Spirited horse
- 1 Fuming
- 2 Make mistakes
- 3 Gun owner’s org.
- 4 Like a diet for high blood pressure
- 5 Title holder
- 6 Shirt parts
- 7 Top card
- 8 Pod contents
- 9 Gushing review
- 10 Over again
- 16 Tell tales
- 18 Foal’s mother
- 19 Smooth
- 20 Fall wide of
- 21 Like walking, as an exercise
- 24 Bike part
- 25 A party to
- 26 Minimal change
- 28 Use of a new word
- 31 Genetic stuff
- 34 Amherst school, informally
- 35 Picket line crosser
- 36 Leafy vegetable
- 37 Computer symbol
- 40 Writer Beattie
- 42 Fish eggs
- 43 Raw metal
- 44 Homer’s neighbor
© 2026 King Features Syndicate, Inc.
About today's Thomas Joseph Crossword
Welcome to the daily answers page for the Thomas Joseph Crossword. This page is updated every day with the latest solution grid and complete clue list for the most recent edition — right now showing May 25, 2026. Today's puzzle uses a 11×13 grid with 23 black squares and a total of 52 clues split between 24 Across and 28 Down entries.
You can solve the puzzle yourself first and use this page to check your work, or reveal answers one at a time whenever you hit a wall. The grid and the clue list stay in sync — click a single "Reveal" button to fill in just that word's letters, or click Reveal Puzzle to flip the entire solution into view at once. Click any clue text to open a dedicated page for that clue with every other Thomas Joseph puzzle date it has appeared in. Earlier puzzles in this week's set are linked in the Previous Puzzles card above.
How to use this answer page
There are three ways to interact with today's puzzle on this page:
- Reveal a single answer. Click the Reveal button next to any Across or Down clue. The corresponding letters appear in the grid in purple, and the button flips to show the full word. This is the way to go when you're 90% finished and stuck on just one entry.
- Reveal the whole puzzle. Click the Reveal Puzzle button above the grid. Every letter fills in and every clue answer appears at once. The same button then becomes Hide Puzzle, so you can clear the screen and try again.
- Clear and reset. Click Clear All to hide every revealed letter and answer. The grid goes back to a blank state — useful for practicing again later, or for sharing the page with someone who hasn't seen the answers yet.
About the Thomas Joseph Crossword
The Thomas Joseph Crossword is a daily American crossword distributed by King Features Syndicate. It appears in more than a hundred newspapers across the country and is also available through dozens of online platforms. Compared with the larger 15×15 weekday puzzles run by major broadsheets, the Thomas Joseph uses a more compact grid — commonly 11×13 — with shorter answers, a friendly difficulty curve and a consistent editorial voice.
It is one of the most widely solved crosswords in the United States precisely because it slots so easily into a daily routine. A confident solver can finish the grid in well under fifteen minutes, which makes it a perfect companion to a morning coffee or a quick lunch break.
A quick history
The Thomas Joseph byline has appeared in syndicated newspapers for several decades, and over the years the name has become shorthand among regular solvers for a clear, fair, classic-style crossword. The puzzle leans into mainstream vocabulary, recognizable proper nouns and the kind of wordplay that rewards a careful read of each clue rather than obscure trivia.
You will rarely encounter rebus squares, hidden themes that change letter-by-letter or other tricks that some weekend-sized puzzles use. The cluing instead favors clean definitions, fill-in-the-blank prompts, mild misdirection and the occasional pun. A solver who has never opened a Thomas Joseph before can usually finish their first attempt on the same day without ever needing a hint.
What makes the Thomas Joseph puzzle distinctive
- Compact grid. Faster to print and faster to solve — ideal for casual fans who want a daily ritual rather than a long sit-down challenge.
- Approachable cluing. Fewer obscure proper nouns and esoteric references than weekend-sized puzzles, so the difficulty stays steady through the week.
- Consistent voice. The editorial style stays remarkably even from one day to the next, which makes the puzzle reliable for repeat solvers.
- Crackable wordplay. Puns, light misdirection and the occasional themed corner appear regularly without ever crossing into unfair territory.
- Lively short fill. Three- and four-letter answers do a lot of the work in any small grid, and the Thomas Joseph keeps them varied instead of recycling the same handful of crosswordese.
Tips for solving the Thomas Joseph Crossword
- Start with the fill-in-the-blanks. A clue that ends in ___ almost always points to a common phrase, song lyric or quotation. These are the fastest free letters in any puzzle and they anchor harder corners.
- Work the short Downs first. Three- and four-letter Down entries near the edges of the grid use the most predictable crossword-friendly vocabulary — common abbreviations, short verbs, two- or three-letter prepositions. Knock these out and you give yourself a checked letter on every long Across.
- Trust intersecting letters. If a clue stumps you on its own, come back to it after the crossing words give you two or three letters. The answer often becomes obvious as soon as you can see the pattern.
- Match tense and number. A past-tense clue calls for a past-tense answer. A plural clue calls for a plural answer. This little habit catches more wrong guesses than any other rule of thumb.
- Watch for foreign-language flags. A clue with "in French," "to Henri" or a similar pointer usually wants the foreign-language word, not the English one.
- Don't get tunnel vision. If a section is fighting you, switch to a different corner of the grid and come back with fresh eyes. Most solvers find their best progress comes after a short break.
- Look for the long Acrosses first. When a Thomas Joseph puzzle has a theme, it usually shows up in the two or three longest entries running through the middle of the grid. Spotting the connection between those answers can unlock the puzzle.
The anatomy of a Thomas Joseph grid
A typical Thomas Joseph day runs on an 11×13 grid — eleven squares wide, thirteen squares tall — with around twenty-one black squares and roughly fifty numbered clues. The grid is symmetric: rotate it 180 degrees and the pattern of black squares falls into the same shape. That symmetry is a quiet hallmark of well-constructed American crosswords.
Each numbered cell starts an Across entry if the square immediately to its right is white, a Down entry if the square immediately below is white, or both at the same time. The longest entries run vertically or horizontally through the middle of the grid and act as anchors for the rest of the fill. Three- and four-letter answers fill the remaining slots and provide the checked letters that keep every long entry honest.
Common crossword abbreviations
Small grids lean heavily on shorthand because three- and four-letter slots are everywhere. The faster you recognize these standbys, the faster every puzzle goes.
| Letters | Often clues |
|---|---|
| AKA | Also known as / alias |
| ETA | Estimated time of arrival |
| ETC | And so on |
| SRO | Standing room only |
| LBJ | U.S. President Johnson |
| ESP | Sixth sense |
| TBA | To be announced |
| RPM | Engine speed |
| ATM | Cash machine |
| NSA | U.S. intelligence agency |
| FDR | President Roosevelt |
| RNs | Hospital staff |
| EMT | First responder |
| UFO | Unidentified sky sighting |
Benefits of solving a daily crossword
- Sharpens mental processing. Regular puzzling has been associated in published research with slower decline in verbal recall and processing speed as adults age.
- Grows vocabulary. Every solve introduces a few words you would not otherwise meet, plus unfamiliar meanings of words you thought you already knew.
- Reduces stress. Many solvers describe the focused, low-stakes attention of a daily puzzle as meditative — a small break from screens and notifications.
- Soaks up trivia. Crosswords are a sneaky way to absorb facts about geography, history, language and pop culture without ever sitting down to study them.
- Builds a daily ritual. Pairing the puzzle with a fixed point in the day — coffee, the commute, lunch — turns solving into a habit that compounds over months and years.
Frequently asked questions
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Puzzle data © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Page content © thomasjosephcrossword.net.