FREESTYLING
Tracy Bennett is a digital-puzzle editor for The Times. She manages Wordle and helps with the crossword. In this themeless puzzle, she took a bold grid pattern with lots of white squares and in each corner positioned a marquee answer — ‘‘something new or that had an appealing sound or cluing potential.’’ Then she built out from there. F.Y.I., those starting points were 23-, 48-, 50- and 87-Across. — W. S.
ACROSS
1 Sarcastic response to an unsurprising development
14 That makes two of us!
21 Gold-rush camp that became a state capital
22 Carrier out of Kuala Lumpur
23 Hormone-therapy product
24 They’re seen on the flags of Bhutan and Wales
25 Alexanders I-III
26 Legal claim
27 Retailer headquartered in Freeport, Maine
29 ‘‘____ Up Offa That Thing’’ (1976 hit)
30 ‘‘Will be,’’ in Spanish
31 Map out
32 The Stepford wives in ‘‘The Stepford Wives,’’ it seems
33 Host city of the 2022 FIFA World Cup
34 ____ Vogue
35 Acronymic devices in atomic clocks and radio telescopes
36 Part of a woodworking joint
37 ____ the Lucky Rabbit, character in early Disney shorts
40 Much sketch comedy
41 ‘‘Media impressions,’’ ‘‘influencer marketing,’’ etc., informally
42 Emulate
43 Diamond division
44 Sore spots for kids?
45 QB-protecting group
46 Difficult
47 San ____, capital founded in 1521
48 Super-sillyous?
50 Apocalyptic scene
55 What nocturnal polysomnography may detect
56 Mainstay of a sci-fi defense system
57 Canal inspector
58 Most serious, in law
59 It’s a question of timing
60 Metric weight units
61 Actor Wilson of ‘‘The Office’’
62 Month that goes by fast?
66 ‘‘Jeepers!’’
67 Stops over in France?
68 Billionaires and such
69 Badly injured
70 Elegant and refined
71 See 81-Across
72 Given the name
73 Peacock show?
74 What a token may resemble
75 Pleased as punch
76 Abandon without warning
77 Figure in the Hindu trinity
81 With 71-Across, participant in some fertility treatments
82 Picks to win
83 ‘‘The Handmaid’s Tale’’ airer
84 First Nations group of the Great Lakes region
85 ‘‘Let’s Make a Deal’’ option
87 Prompt from the chronically forgetful
90 Accessibility concern
91 Walk in place?
92 Leafs
93 Set of books with maps, perhaps
DOWN
1 Stimulates
2 ‘‘Siddhartha’’ author
3 Where sacrifices may be made
4 Planet Earth
5 Actress Mireille ____ of TV’s ‘‘Hanna’’ and ‘‘Lucky Hank’’
6 Trail behind
7 Made scents?
8 Lasting for an immeasurable time span
9 How legal papers may be signed
10 Die-hard fan, in modern lingo
11 Turner of American history
12 Wrapped around
13 Mark who was the world’s highest-paid actor in 2017
14 Military trainees
15 Turkish money
16 Port city in Algeria
17 Badger
18 Having equal angles
19 Like some golf courses
20 They may need fillings
28 Snooze
31 Who said, ‘‘Football is not about one or two or three star players’’
32 Rough fabric with a loose weave
33 Investigators: Abbr.
34 Leave hurriedly, in quaint usage
35 Capital on the island of Luzon
36 Passage from one party to another
37 ‘‘Va-va-voom!’’
38 It cuts the cheese (but not the mustard)
39 Got some shut-eye?
40 Pulitzer-winning poet Gary
41 Rang, as a bell
42 Use a divining rod
43 Like some decals
44 Compulsory payments of old
46 List of ranked favorites
47 Purchase at a sports stadium
49 Seasonal Russian cottages
50 Intruded, with ‘‘in’’
51 Items usually sold in boxes of 25 52 Mountaintop homes
53 Enough to go around
54 Utopias
56 Played the rat
58 Outschemed, in a way
60 Period from 1945 to 1953
62 Evergreen tree with fragrant bark
63 Indian dish of potatoes and cauliflower
64 Putt-putt
65 Loads
66 ‘‘Carmina Burana’’ composer
67 Landed
69 Units of RAM, for short
70 Character defamation
72 Family emblems
73 They’re found beside exclamation marks on keyboards
75 Inkling
76 Coup group
77 Sweet stuff in asparagus (if you read it backward)?
78 Many a Shiite
79 It may be raised in an argument
80 Auntie ____ (pretzel chain)
82 Pasta-recipe instruction
83 Inkling
84 Largest of the lagomorphs
86 Flag thrower, informally
88 Time to get back to work: Abbr.
89 Otherworldly sorts, for short