Welcome to the ultimate crossword puzzle trivia quiz! Whether you’re a seasoned crossword enthusiast or just a casual solver, this quiz is here to test your knowledge and sprinkle in a few fascinating facts you might not have known. Dive deep into the world of crosswords, exploring its history, oddities, and notable personalities. Ready to take on the challenge? Let’s begin!
1. Who is considered the inventor of the modern crossword puzzle?
2. In which year was the first crossword puzzle published?
3. What newspaper first popularized the crossword puzzle in the 1920s?
4. Which country is considered to have invented the cryptic crossword?
5. What’s the term for a square in a crossword that contains no clues?
6. In crosswords, what’s the name for the word or phrase that solves a clue?
7. How long did it take Marc Romano to solve 144 crosswords at the 2006 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament?
8. What is the world record time for solving a New York Times Sunday crossword?
9. Which celebrity is known for their love of crossword puzzles and even created their own?
10. What is a common name for a crossword puzzle with a 15×15 grid?
11. What term is used for a clue where two or more answers are interwoven?
12. How many solutions did the 1996 election-themed New York Times crossword puzzle have?
13. Which country’s crosswords are mostly filled with general knowledge clues rather than wordplay?
14. How do you call a crossword puzzle that does not have black squares?
15. In what year was the first crossword book published?
16. How much was the most expensive crossword puzzle book ever sold at an auction?
17. Which museum in New York held a crossword-themed exhibit in 2013?
18. What software is popularly used by professional crossword constructors?
19. What’s the maximum word count for a standard New York Times weekday crossword?
20. Which US president was rumored to complete the New York Times crossword daily?
21. What language besides English has a significant crossword following?
22. Who starred in the 2006 film about crossword puzzles, “Wordplay”?
23. In which city is the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament held annually?
24. Who wrote the crossword-themed mystery novel “A Clue for the Puzzle Lady”?
25. Which world-famous detective is associated with the quote, “It is the crosswords, the crosswords that matter!”?
26. In which country did crosswords become a fad in the 1920s, causing some employers to fire workers for indulging in them during working hours?
27. Which crossword puzzle had a central answer of ‘GOD’ and no other proper nouns?
28. Which country’s crosswords often include many anagrams, often indicated by words like “perhaps” or “maybe”?
29. In which decade did the cryptic crossword become popular in Australia?
30. What is the name for a crossword in which each clue is a single picture?
31. What’s the name of the Japanese crossword variant where solvers are provided with a blank grid and must deduce the answer’s location and interlock?
32. Which famous poet was also a renowned crossword constructor for The New York Times?
33. What board game relies on a crossword-style layout where players score points by forming words with lettered tiles?
34. Which magazine, known for its challenging crosswords, was first published in 1873?
35. How many solutions did the 1996 election-themed New York Times crossword puzzle have?
36. In cryptic crosswords, what type of clue involves joining together letters or parts of words?
37. Which city is home to the World Puzzle Championship?
38. What two-letter word, a type of conifer, is popular in crosswords due to its uncommon letter combination?
39. Who is the editor of the New York Times crossword puzzle as of the last update in 2021?
40. In which year did the first crossword puzzle appear in the UK’s The Sunday Express?
41. What type of crossword puzzle has no shaded squares?
42. Which company produced the first digital version of crosswords in the 1980s?
43. What famous Broadway musical features a song about the love of solving puzzles, including crosswords?
44. Who holds the record for the most published New York Times crossword puzzles?
45. What word, meaning ‘sun’, is often used in crosswords due to its vowel-consonant pattern?
46. Which type of crossword puzzle involves no black squares but instead uses bold lines to separate sections?
47. In crossword lingo, what term refers to the word in the clue which signals that it is an anagram?
48. Who wrote the book “Cracking the Crossword”?
49. In the world of crosswords, what does the abbreviation “TOS” stand for?
50. In a cryptic crossword, which word might indicate that the solution is hidden within the clue itself?
51. Which popular puzzle game, invented in Japan, involves placing numbers in a grid so that each row, column, and region contains the numbers 1 through 9 only once?
52. What’s the name for a crossword puzzle clue that sounds like its answer?
53. Which famous Agatha Christie detective often enjoyed crosswords as a pastime?
54. Which word, when read the same backward and forward, is a favorite among crossword enthusiasts?
55. What word, often used in crosswords, is a synonym for a whimsical or odd person?
56. What famous American humorist once said, “I have a spell-checker – it’s called a crossword puzzle.”?
57. Which TV game show involves contestants using word clues to fill in a crossword puzzle-like pattern?
58. How many words must a New York Times Thursday crossword typically contain?
59. Which renowned crossword constructor was known for his unique themes and became a significant contributor to the New York Times?
60. What term in crossword constructing refers to a word or phrase that’s filled into the grid without any crossing answers?
61. Which classic detective film prominently features a crossword puzzle as a plot point?
62. In crossword puzzle history, what term referred to puzzles where the words were curved or bent?
63. Which country’s crossword puzzles are known for having clues outside the grid?
64. How do you call a crossword puzzle where words instead of individual letters are entered into the white cells of the grid?
65. Which crossword editor and constructor wrote the book “Random House Puzzlemaker’s Handbook”?
66. Which word, meaning ‘clumsy’, is often popular in crosswords due to its vowel-heavy composition?
67. In what year did the first crossword puzzle book get published?
68. What’s the term for a crossword clue that directly gives the answer without any need for a puzzle?
69. In which major global event were crosswords suspected to be used as a secret code mechanism?
70. Who composed the crossword puzzle which appeared on an album cover of a famous British rock band in the 1970s?
71. How do you call a crossword with a symmetrical grid but no black squares?
72. In which year did the first ever crossword championship take place?
73. Which UK newspaper was the first to regularly publish Sudoku, rebranding it from its American name “Number Place”?
74. Which ocean, when spelled backward, is a popular word in crossword puzzles?
75. Which popular word game involves finding as many words as possible from a set of seven letters and always includes one letter that must be used?
76. Who is credited with creating the world’s first known published crossword puzzle?
77. In what year was the term “crossword” first coined, amalgamating “word-cross” which was the original term for the puzzle?
78. What five-letter word, relating to a bird, is a favorite in crosswords because of its vowel pattern?
79. Who is the central character in the mystery novel “The Crossword Murder”?
80. In which famous American city was the first crossword puzzle museum opened?
81. Which award is considered the “Oscar” of the crossword puzzle world?
82. What’s the name of the software used by many crossword constructors to assist in grid design and fill?
83. Which classic detective novel starts with a woman considering whether to kill her husband during breakfast while doing a crossword?
84. In crossword jargon, what does the term “pangrammatic” mean?
85. Who wrote “Crossworld: One Man’s Journey into America’s Crossword Obsession”?
86. In which year did crossword puzzles celebrate their 100th anniversary?
87. Which term refers to a crossword grid with rotational symmetry, where the pattern looks the same when rotated 180 degrees?
88. What is the average word length in most standard crossword puzzles?
89. What type of crossword has no clues, with solvers filling in the white cells from a given list of words or phrases?
90. Which President of the United States was known for his love of crosswords and often solved puzzles to relax?
91. How do you call a type of puzzle where letters are replaced by numbers to decode a message, often seen alongside crosswords in newspapers?
92. Who is known for the creation of the first computer program to automatically generate crossword puzzles?
93. Which fictional detective is known for cryptic clues and might be imagined as a crossword aficionado, though it’s not explicitly stated?
94. What name is given to the grid in which crossword puzzles are placed?
95. What kind of crossword puzzles are designed to be filled out by two people simultaneously?
96. In which country did crossword puzzles become an educational tool for language learning in the 19th century?
97. Which science fiction author and biochemistry professor was known for his love of creating and solving crossword puzzles?
98. What term refers to a word in a crossword puzzle that is formed by joining the beginning and end of another word?
99. What type of crossword involves clues given in a set of 14 characters, often making the clues themselves puzzles to decipher?
100. Which famous musician was rumored to have submitted crossword puzzles anonymously to major newspapers?
101. What’s the term for a crossword puzzle clue that is composed of two or more other clues’ solutions?
102. Which famous actress and star of a popular 1960s sitcom is known to have been an avid crossword enthusiast?
103. What’s the term for a word that reads the same both horizontally and vertically in a crossword?
104. Which newspaper is considered the “gold standard” for American-style crosswords?
105. In what country are crossword puzzles traditionally filled in using all capital letters?
106. Who directed the 2006 documentary about the world of competitive crossword puzzle solvers titled “Wordplay”?
107. Which classic board game, known for word formation, can be thought of as a 3D crossword puzzle?
108. What term refers to the small section of cells in a crossword puzzle that is separated from the rest of the puzzle?
109. Who is often considered the “Queen of the Crossword” for her numerous contributions to the puzzle world?
110. In which European language’s crosswords are solvers not required to use vowels, and only consonants are filled in the grid?
111. Which iconic fashion magazine has featured a crossword in almost every issue since the 1940s?
112. Who created the first crossword puzzle for The New York Times in 1942?
113. What’s the term for a three-letter word in crosswords, which can make grids particularly challenging to fill?
114. In what year did the first-ever international crossword marathon take place?
115. Which famous astronaut was known to take crossword puzzles to space as a pastime?
116. What type of crossword puzzle gives cryptic clues and also has each letter of the alphabet appearing at least once in the solutions?
117. What’s the name of the annual crossword contest held in Stamford, Connecticut?
118. In a cryptic crossword, what does the term “container and contents” mean?
119. Who is the long-time editor of the New York Times crossword puzzle, who started in 1993?
120. Which famous poet was known for his love of crosswords and even mentioned them in his works?
121. Which software, rivaling Crossfire, is also popularly used to create crossword puzzles?
122. In which decade did cryptic crosswords first appear in British newspapers?
123. What name is given to the special type of crossword puzzle that appears on Christmas in many British newspapers?
124. Which famous comic strip character is known for his love of “Cryptoquote” puzzles, a variant of crosswords?
125. How do you call a crossword clue that has a dual meaning, with one typically being straightforward and the other cryptic?
126. What’s the term for the grid squares in a crossword puzzle that do not contain letters and are typically blacked out?
127. In which Asian country is the word for crossword literally translated to “word square game”?
128. Which computer scientist and artificial intelligence pioneer created a program in the 60s that could generate crossword puzzles?
129. Which British monarch is known to have been an avid solver of The Times crossword?
130. Which novelist included a full-length cryptic crossword in his novel “The Shadow of the Wind”?
131. What’s the name of the cell where a word begins in a crossword, and which often contains a number referring to the clue?
132. Which famous playwright was known to compose cryptic crosswords for British newspapers in his spare time?
133. What kind of crossword has each clue linked to the next to form a kind of narrative or story?
134. What is the name given to the world record for the largest published crossword, with over 125,000 squares and over 91,000 clues?
Final Words
Thank you for diving into our crossword puzzle trivia! We hope you found it as enlightening as it was challenging. For more intriguing quizzes and brain-teasing fun, don’t forget to explore the other offerings on Trivia Bliss, including quizzes about Sudoku, jigsaw puzzles, and chess. Happy puzzling!
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