Crossword

A crossword is a word game played on a grid of black and white squares, into which solvers write words or phrases, called entries, that cross each other horizontally and vertically to match a set of numbered clues. Each white square usually holds one letter, black squares separate entries, and the first square of each entry is numbered to match its clue. Crosswords commonly appear in newspapers and magazines, and the earliest puzzles resembling the modern form were popularized by the New York World in the 1910s, with many variants now popular worldwide, including cryptic crosswords and puzzles built around particular languages. Modern crossword construction usually relies on software: the constructor picks a theme, places the theme answers in a grid that is usually symmetric under rotation, fills in the remaining squares, and then writes the clues, and a person who builds or solves crosswords is called a cruciverbalist, a word coined in the 1970s from the Latin for cross and word.