The New York Times Crossword
ACROSS
1 Lawn game played with a ball known as a pallino
6 Thin snack
11 Formal words of commitment 13 Omitted, as a syllable
15 Toyed (with) 17 Neighborhood in lower Manhattan 18 Exhibited heliotropism, as a flower 20 Plus-or-minus one?
21 Joe’s co-host on “Morning Joe”
22 Part of a Tolkien army
23 Big fuss
25 What gives a gin fizz its fizz 26 Novelist Brontë 27 Prepared for an oral exam? 30 Construction beam
32 Abolitionist who wrote “Twelve Years a Slave” 37 Fantasy sports scoring standard, informally
38 Bygone phrase for “gone by” 39 “Enough! I get it!” 42 Overly proper 44 Cambridge or Oxford, to a Londoner
45 Big initials in theaters
46 Dip that might be made in a molcajete, informally
47 Poor review
49 Went uneaten, as some groceries 54 Classic Asimov collection
55 Part of a calendar septet, and a phonetic hint to this puzzle’s theme
56 Florida’s “Sunshine City,” for short
57 Futile
58 Philly basketball player
59 Leafs (through)
DOWN
1 Bully in “Back to the Future”
2 Home for the artist Edvard Munch
3 Spicy ramen condiment
4 Monte _ _ _
5 John who sang “Bennie and the Jets”
6 Exploded
7 Lei man’s term? 8 Rank’s counterpart, on a chessboard
9 New Jersey city named for its most famous former resident
10 Come back
12 _ _ _ Alcindor (Kareem Abduljabbar, formerly) 14 Ballet or ballroom, e.g.
16 First phase of a home reno 19 Finished off
23 Word after kick or bad
24 “The Way,” in Chinese Pinyin 25 Track-and-field athlete with a strong arm 26 Pretentiously avant-garde 28 Dweeb
29 Te _ _ _ (“I love you,” in Spanish) 31 Yap from a lap? 33 Jazz singer Jones 34 Elvis hit that was the B-side of “Don’t Be Cruel”
35 Caterer’s container
36 Smallest Canadian province, for short 39 Stop in a desert 40 Once-popular big box stores
41 Ocean creatures with nearly triple the neural wiring of humans
43 Rapper whose name sounds like a beverage 46 Thousand-dollar bill, slangily
47 Before surgery, informally 48 Writer/podcaster Harris
50 Mountain goat 51 A good time 52 Be wide-open 53 Parts of the
“Mona Lisa” that seem to follow you around