Students: try to find as many words as you can that are defined using all four parts of speech on the Visual Thesaurus (i.e., noun, adjective, verb, and adverb). E-mail us with your list of words and we'll send the winner who has accurately compiled the longest list some swell Visual Thesaurus swag (if you don't know what that is, look it up!). The deadline is a fortnight after the ides of March (again, look it up!).

The 2009 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, held this past weekend at the Brooklyn Marriott, had it all: warm cameraderie of puzzle-minded word lovers, and high drama in the finals that left the audience alternately gasping and cheering. If you missed any of our coverage of the Tournament, here's a handy recap.  Continue reading...

The finals of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament promised to be a thrilling event, and it did not disappoint. Tyler Hinman emerged as the winner for a fifth consecutive time, but only after a grueling and highly dramatic round against fellow finalists Francis Heaney and Trip Payne.  Continue reading...

The first day of competitive play at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament saw 684 contestants fill the main ballroom of the Brooklyn Marriott, solving six puzzles that ranged from breezy to downright fiendish. With the interim results tallied, the scoring leaders are mostly familiar faces in the crossword world — with one notable exception: Dan Feyer, in only his second year of tournament play, is sitting pretty in the number one spot.  Continue reading...

Tonight the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament kicks off at the Brooklyn Marriott with "an evening of games and entertainments" — a night of conviviality before the Tournament proper begins Saturday morning. We here at the Visual Thesaurus are happy to help sponsor the Friday fun, providing complimentary VT subscriptions to the prize-winners. I'll be attending tonight (in advance of competing in the Tournament in the "rookie" category), and I'm looking forward to meeting up with friends old and new in this collegial community of diehard verbivores.  Continue reading...

With this year's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament just around the corner, there is no better time to consider that peculiar, vowel-heavy brand of English known as "crosswordese." Think you're a first-rate cruciverbalist? Quick: can you tell an anoa from an unau?  Continue reading...