WSJ Contest — Friday, January 2, 2026 |
WSJ (Contest) Grid: 30 minutes; Meta: 20 more [4.25 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
Matt Gaffney’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “A Quarter of the Way There” — Conrad’s writeup.
This week Matt told us We’re 25% of the way through the 21st century! The answer to this week’s contest crossword is a fitting 18-letter message from the future. The grid was tough for me, a sure sign that the meta mechanism was grid-based.
There were two long horizontal entries, but no obvious potential theme entries beyond those. I spun my wheels for a bit, focusing on quarter and Matt’s very specific 18-letter prompt. The two long entries had 12 letters (4 x 3). There were also two 8-letter entries (4 x 2), and eight 4-letter (4 x 1) entries. That added up to 18 letters in evenly divisible quarters. I was briefly delayed when I focused on the first quarter (forming ODISROSC…) and shifted to the second quarter. Here are the second quarters of each 4, 8, and 12-letter grid entry, in bracketed grid order:
WSJ Contest – 01.04.2026
- O[H]IO
- DIS[APP]OINTED
- RO[YA]LIST
- S[P]EC
- C[R]UD
- K[I]SS
- B[L]AB
- O[F]IT
- B[O]AZ
- AP[OL]OGIA
- ONE[SDA]RNDEST
- A[Y]ER
The second quarters spell our contest solution HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY, which starts the second quarter of the year. Fun construction by Matt, with a fitting solution. Solvers, please share your thoughts.