Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: March 2026

Constructor: Matt Proulx and Jeffrey Martinovic

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Going Down Fast" — theme answers contain "HILL," the letters of which descend downward (in circled squares) with a steepness that changes. based on the ski trail difficulty rating symbol (which interrupts that answer and immediately precedes "HILL"); each "HILL" is thus a different kind of SLIPPERY SLOPE (67A: Certain fallacy .. or what's indicated by every "Sign' in this puzzle's grid):

Theme answers:

CHINC🟢HILLAS (16A: Sources of fur in some luxury clothing)
CAPTAIN P🟦HILLIPS (44A: 2013 film whose titular character is captured by Somali pirates)
BRITISH S♦HILLING (78A: Old coin worth 1/20 of a pound)
BONE-C♦♦HILLING (105A: Eerie and then some)

Word of the Day: SWAGE (102D: Metal-shaping tool) —

Swaging (/ˈsweɪdʒɪŋ/) is a forging process in which the dimensions of an item are altered using dies into which the item is forced. Swaging is usually a cold working process, but also may be hot worked.
The term swage may apply to the process (verb) or to a die or tool (noun) used in that process.

["Eccentric Swage Nipple" is my favorite '60s psychedelic rock band]

The term "swage" comes from the Old French term souage, meaning "decorative groove" or "ornamental moulding". Swages were originally tools used by blacksmiths to form metal into various shapes too intricate to make with a hammer alone. These have handles for holding or pegs for attaching to an anvil, and often a flat head for striking with a hammer. Swage blocks are anvil-like dies with various shapes forged into them, which are also used for forming metal. Swages called "fullers" are specific to making grooves in swords and knives. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was certainly inventive, though I can't say it was that enjoyable for me. I haven't skied in decades, but I'm at least vaguely aware of the trail rating system, so picking up the theme wasn't too hard, and once I did, all the HILLs just filled themselves in, which made the whole thing even easier than it already was. I guess the puzzle does the best it can to work the "HILL"s into different levels of steepness, but the final one, the double-diamond "HILL," is preposterous. That's not a hill, that's a cliff. A sheer cliff. SLIPPERY SLOPE is a fairly apt way of describing any ski slope, so the revealer was fine, if not exactly a true revelation or a genuine "aha." I feel like this is a three-star puzzle, but I'm gonna bump it a half-star for creativity. Gotta respect a big swing. But I can't say this was fun to solve. I could admire the structural and architectural elements of the theme, but in the end, the theme answers themselves were just "HILL"-containing answers—nothing inherently interesting about that. And as I say, all the "HILL"s were just handed to me on a platter, which made the theme answers easier, and thus duller, than they should've been. I hate any references to fur, so the CHINCHILLAS clue was off-putting, and I hate any references to the world of Harry Potter, so the FULL BEARD clue was off-putting (41D: Notable feature of Hagrid or Gandalf). Also, I don't really believe FULL BEARD is a thing. It's just a beard. We call that a beard. Worst of all, from an editing perspective, was the clue on LAV (10D: British bathroom), which uses "British" when BRITISH already appears as a full word in the grid (BRITISH SHILLING). So easy—soooo easy—to change that clue to [Bristol bathroom] or [Birmingham bathroom] or [Bath bathroom] for god's sake. Really conspicuous words in the grid, particularly theme answers, should not be duped in the clues. Seems negligent or lazy, and definitely inelegant.

[66D: "Fernando" group, 1976]

The hardest part for me today was the CLAMBER / SHARE A CAB / KEVIN JONAS stack. LO-extreme-L at the idea that I would know any of the first names of the Jonas brothers. Nick? Is one of them named Nick? Yes. How do I know that? I think maybe I also have heard of Joe Jonas. But KEVIN, oof, no. SHARE A CAB makes me want to EAT A SANDWICH ... although I suppose it's got a bit more standalone power than EAT A SANDWICH (18A: Carpool home from the bar, say). Still, I don't think of sharing a cab as "carpooling." And as for CLAMBER ... I kinda sorta wanted it, but I didn't trust myself there (9A: Move awkwardly (up)). Not a word I ever use. The more I look at it, the wronger it looks. Anyway, CLAMB over SHARE A over KEVIN was giving me issues for a bit, esp. since that whole stack was traversed by CHESS, which was very toughly clued (9D: It's all there in black and white). "There?" Where? Also, not all chess sets feature black and white men. In fact, if you do an image search (right now, go ahead) you'll find that very few of the results are black & white. There's always some form of dark and light, but the "white" pieces are often more of a light brown, made out of a light wood. Something like this:

The clue is still fair, just hard. Not much else about this puzzle was hard. Except SWAGE. LOL, SWAGE, what the hell? (102D: Metal-shaping tool). I needed every cross. Then I had to check and double-check every cross to make sure that I didn't have an error. Then I just stared at it for a second like "really?" Then I just left it there and hoped for the best. Seventeen years since the last appearance of SWAGE. That means I've seen it. I've even blogged about it. I wonder what I said about it in 2009, hang on ... ha, SWAGE didn't even make Word of the Day. The Word of the Day that day was WOLD ... whoa, WOLD and SWAGE crossed at the "W"! Yikes. Nothing so frightening in today's grid.

[76A: Hall's musical partner]

Made a few small mistakes here and there. CIA AGENT before CIA ASSET (3D: Mole, maybe). STEEL TOE before STEEL TIP (86D: Sturdy boot feature). ARIzona before ARKansas (does anyone abbr. "Arkansas" that way??) (6A: State home to the only public diamond mine in the U.S.: Abbr.). Unusual stuff like POULT (70D: Young turkey) and ILOILO (53A: Philippine seaport with a repetitive name) I know from years and years of solving. Historically, the constructor who used ILOILO the most (by far) was Eugene Maleska (who is best known as the editor who preceded Will Shortz). As a constructor (before he became editor), he used ILOILO six (6!) times, which is almost as many times as ILOILO appeared in all the puzzles he edited (7). My point is, if you didn't know ILOILO, don't feel too bad. It was way more common in days of yore. We haven't seen it for about six years. It's been a little over four for POULT, which disappeared for over twelve years there in the early part of this century, but generally appears once every handful of years. Uncommon, for sure. But worth knowing. Bound to come back ... some day.

Bullets:

30A: Like Buffalo, N.Y., about 167 days a year, typically (RAINY) — almost half the year? Really? I live only a handful of hours away from Buffalo, and I had no idea. We don't get nearly that much rain here. We do get ~150 days with precipitation, but much of that is snow. I knew about Buffalo's lake effect snow. The snowiness of Buffalo is legendary. Infamous. The rain, wow, real news to me. In fact, I'm not sure the clue is right. It's at least misleading. I'm looking at data that says Buffalo gets 166 days of precipitation, annually. That's rain or snow, not just rain. I submit to you that snowy days are not RAINY.

121A: Pertaining to conflict, in behavioral science (AGONISTIC) — I know this word from studying Greek literature. Agon is a Gr. deity who personified conflict, but it's also a term meaning "contest" or "struggle" (that's how I know it, anyway). Here's some good background information from our good friends at merriam-webster dot com:

Agonistic has its roots in ancient Greece—specifically in the agonistic (to use the oldest sense of the word) athletic contests called agons featured at public festivals. From physical conflict to verbal jousting, agonistic came to be used as a synonym for argumentative and later to mean "striving for effect" or "strained." Common current use, however, is biological, relating to confrontational interaction among animals of the same species and the responsive behaviors—such as aggression, flight, or submission—they exhibit. Agonistic is also sometimes used to describe an agonist muscle, a muscle that on contracting is automatically checked and controlled by an opposing muscle, that other muscle being an antagonist. For example, during a bicep curl in weight lifting, the (contracted) bicep is the agonistic muscle and the (relaxed) triceps muscle is the antagonist.

69D: Dark half of a famous duality (YIN) — so ... not TOM?

18D: Music that's a little offbeat? (SKA) — "Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat." (wikipedia)

44D: Bumpy ride? (CAMEL) — embarrassed by how long this took me. It's a very good "?" clue and I just blanked and blanked and blanked and even blanked some more after I'd gotten it down to CAME-. "CAMEO?" No, not CAMEO, dummy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. if you live in southern Michigan (as I used to) or anywhere near there, really, then guess what? You've got a regional crossword tournament coming up. Detroit! (well, Hamtramck, which is close). It's called the Grid Prix and it takes Thursday, Mar. 19 at Book Suey in Hamtramck, MI. Capacity is limited. I know I have a lot of Ann Arbor readers, specifically, so some of y'all should go check it out! Send me pictures. I miss Michigan. Go Tigers. Go Blue. Here's the info:

P.P.S. A re-reminder that the Boswords 2026 Spring Themeless League starts tomorrow (Mar. 2) with a "Pre-season Puzzle" and then starts in earnest with "Puzzle #1" the week after. You can compete as an individual or as a pairs team. There are well over 600 participants already signed up! More information here.

P.P.P.S. if you're looking for (yet another!) fun little word game to play on your phone, you might try Oroboro, where overlapping words form a circle and you use the clues to complete it. You can set the difficulty level to your liking. Check it out here.

P.P.P.P.S. if you want a cute word-related gift book, or maybe a book of wordplay you can share with your kids, check out AB@C ("a bee at sea") a new book of gramograms ("puzzles in which letters, numbers, and other symbols are spoken aloud to make words and sentences"). These puzzles were made famous by the great William Steig (I own both his CDB! and CDC?), and now author Rob Meyerson and New Yorker cartoonist Dan Misdea have teamed up for a new, modern collection. Pick it up at bookshop.com or wherever you buy books. You can pick up Steig's books while you're at it!

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