Shortzian
Shortzian adjective: of or pertaining to the style or tenure of New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz, featuring wordplay and colloquial vocabulary, especially in contrast to previous editors such as Eugene Maleska.
Adjective
Shortzian (comparative more Shortzian, superlative most Shortzian)
- Of or pertaining to the style or tenure of New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz, featuring wordplay and colloquial vocabulary, especially in contrast to previous editors such as Eugene Maleska
- And yet the Shortzian spiral below is a far more recent example. Letters are arranged concentrically, with answers reading on inward and outward paths and no clear demarcation between answers in either direction.2013 May 1, T. Campbell, On Crosswords: Thoughts, Studies, Facts and Snark About a 100-Year-Old Pastime, Morgan James Publishing, →ISBN, page 139
- Or, maybe it was a crossword puzzle with some mis-numbered clues, some Shortzian red herrings.2015 June 27, BJ Creighton, No Sanctuary, Scribl, →ISBN
Forms of Shortzian
| comparative | more Shortzian |
|---|---|
| superlative | most Shortzian |
Origin of Shortzian
From Shortz + -ian.
Questions about Shortzian
- What does Shortzian mean?
- Shortzian means of or pertaining to the style or tenure of New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz, featuring wordplay and colloquial vocabulary, especially in contrast to previous editors such as Eugene Maleska.
- What part of speech is Shortzian?
- Shortzian is an adjective.
Words near Shortzian in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Shortzian (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “Shortzian.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shortzian. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.