NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 Lively dances in 2/4 time

7 Smallest country in mainland Africa 13 Had a fit?

15 Indian or Mexican

16 Frazzled commuter’s comment

17 One getting on

18 How someone may be interrupted 20 Country club figure

21 Language with a trilled “r”

22 Verb in the first telegraph message 23 They’re encouraged on a ketogenic diet 24 Encouraging words

25 Japanese stock holder

26 Lead-in to comic

27 “Super” thing in games, once

28 Force of nature?

30 Bit of belt-tightening

31 Longtime talk show host with a degree

from Harvard

34 Ethnic group that makes up about 18%

of the world’s population

37 Silly tricks

38 Ones on Telemundo

39 Athlete known as “The Black Pearl” 40 “What, will these hands ___ be clean?”:

Lady Macbeth

41 Wee warbler

42 Luxurious Italian house

43 Abbr. for those who don’t like parties 44 Bisector of the Fertile Crescent

46 Road Runners’ race classification 48 Neighbor of an Austrian

49 Part of an oven

50 Money in the Bible

51 What’s left

52 Prepare to go DOWN

1 Secretary of war to Taft, Roosevelt and Truman

2 First word of the Constitution after the preamble

3 Messes up

4 Wild things

5 Shop shapers

6 Any minute

7 Mean Miss of “The Wizard of Oz” 8 Second

9 Ed.’s inbox filler

10 Cameo

11 Resistance to change

12 Kind of can

14 Overhyped event, in slang

15 One who gets bent out of shape 19 Connecticut Yankee, e.g.

23 Pedal pushers

25 “Love ___”

26 Emulated Rumpelstiltskin 28 Hunter College is part of it, in

brief

29 Summer coolers

30 Attorney general before Reno 31 Disbeliever’s question

32 Prelims

33 Is unobliged to

34 “My word!”

35 Chewy, in a way

36 Proximate

39 Dividing shrub

41 Toon with a middle initial 42 Drudge

44 List

45 Smeltery refuse

47 Nowhere to be found, for short