Hard crossword puzzles to print
These hard printable crossword puzzles are for solvers who want to be tested. Each one has 18 words on a single subject and no word bank, and the clues expect real knowledge: Shakespeare's characters, the ancient world, chemistry, astronomy, law and government, medicine, great rivers and peaks, economics, famous painters, inventors, literary terms and rare vocabulary. Words cross often enough that a few sure answers will open up the rest. Every sheet is a clean US-letter page with squares big enough to write in, and the answer key is on page two. You can also download all twelve in one PDF.
Clues in each puzzle
The Ancient World (hard)
Across
- 3. Preserved body wrapped in linen
- 4. Roman army unit
- 6. Professional writer of ancient Egypt
- 8. Tomb at Giza
- 9. Teacher of Plato
- 11. Picture symbol in Egyptian writing
- 13. Two-wheeled racing vehicle
- 16. Roman water channel
- 17. City of the Hanging Gardens
- 18. Birthplace of democracy
Down
- 1. Augustus was Rome's first
- 2. Rome's governing council
- 5. Ruler said to have fiddled while Rome burned
- 7. Hannibal's city
- 10. Fighter in the Colosseum
- 12. Temple on the Acropolis
- 14. Egyptian writing material
- 15. Prophet at Delphi
Shakespeare (hard)
Across
- 4. Hamlet's doomed love
- 11. Town of his birth, on the Avon
- 13. "King Lear," for one
- 14. Montague son
- 16. Lear's loyal daughter
- 17. Mischief maker in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
- 18. Nickname for the playwright, with "the"
Down
- 1. Scheming ensign who ruins the Moor
- 2. "Twelfth Night," for one
- 3. Home of the Montagues and Capulets
- 5. Magician of "The Tempest"
- 6. Capulet daughter
- 7. Prince Hal's fat friend
- 8. Speech given alone on stage
- 9. Moneylender in "The Merchant of Venice"
- 10. The playwright's London theater
- 12. Moor of Venice
- 15. "The Scottish play"
Chemistry (hard)
Across
- 1. Gas in glowing signs
- 3. Center of an atom
- 7. Long chain compound, like nylon
- 8. Basis of all known life
- 11. Lab method for finding a concentration
- 12. Water or table salt, to a chemist
- 13. Negative particle in an atom
- 14. Charged atom
- 15. It speeds up a reaction
- 18. Lab glass with a pouring lip
Down
- 2. Gas we breathe
- 4. Entry on the periodic table
- 5. Lightest element
- 6. Positive particle in an atom's core
- 9. Two or more bonded atoms
- 10. Liquid that dissolves a substance
- 16. A base; the opposite of an acid
- 17. Na, half of table salt
Astronomy (hard)
Across
- 1. Farthest point of the moon's path from Earth
- 3. Sun's outer atmosphere
- 4. Ringed planet
- 8. Longest or shortest day of the year
- 10. Rapidly spinning neutron star
- 11. Largest planet
- 12. Icy visitor with a tail
- 15. Exploding star
- 16. Rocky body between Mars and Jupiter
- 17. Bowl-shaped impact scar
Down
- 2. Day and night of equal length
- 3. The universe
- 5. Shooting star
- 6. Cloud of gas and dust in space
- 7. About 3.26 light-years
- 9. Galileo's instrument
- 13. Hunter with a belt of three stars
- 14. Very bright, distant object powered by a black hole
Law & Government (hard)
Across
- 2. Branch made up of the courts
- 4. Request for a higher court's review
- 7. Order to appear in court
- 8. Change to the Constitution
- 9. Long speech meant to block a vote
- 13. Jury's decision
- 14. Governor's act of forgiveness
- 15. One of 100 in Washington
- 16. President's rejection of a bill
- 17. Agreement between nations
Down
- 1. Party meeting to pick candidates
- 3. Party accused in court
- 5. Party who brings a lawsuit
- 6. Witness's statement under oath
- 8. Sworn written statement
- 10. Minimum number needed to do business
- 11. Written law
- 12. Voter's paper
Medicine (hard)
Across
- 1. Tissue sample taken for testing
- 5. Surgical stitch
- 6. Shot that builds immunity
- 7. Cause of flu or a cold
- 11. It puts a patient under
- 13. Study of the heart
- 14. Sorting of patients by urgency
- 15. Instrument for listening to the heart
- 16. Operating room knife
- 17. Fleming's mold-based discovery
- 18. Sign of an illness
Down
- 2. Hormone that controls blood sugar
- 3. Not cancerous
- 4. Broken bone
- 8. Amount of medicine to take
- 9. Drug that fights bacteria
- 10. Doctor's identification of an illness
- 12. Sugar pill in a drug trial
Rivers, Peaks & Seas (hard)
Across
- 2. North America's tallest mountain
- 6. "Old Man River"
- 7. Longest river in Europe
- 9. Largest inland sea
- 10. River of Victoria Falls
- 14. Pyramid-shaped Alpine peak
- 15. River that flows north through Egypt
- 16. River through Paris
- 17. Longest river in Asia
- 18. Range through Colorado
Down
- 1. London's river
- 3. Range crossed by Hannibal
- 4. Tanzania's snowcapped giant
- 5. Largest ocean
- 8. Sacred river of India
- 11. Sea bordering Sweden and Poland
- 12. River past Cologne
- 13. Range dividing Europe and Asia
Money & Economics (hard)
Across
- 3. Home loan
- 5. Shareholder's payout
- 6. Asset pledged for a loan
- 7. Contract paying a steady income
- 8. Cost of borrowing
- 9. Government payment to support an industry
- 12. Investor's collection of holdings
- 14. Ownership value in a home or company
- 16. Legally unable to pay debts
- 17. Yen, euro or dollar
Down
- 1. Book of accounts
- 2. General rise in prices
- 4. Economic downturn
- 5. Shortfall when spending tops income
- 10. Spending plan
- 11. Market with a single seller
- 13. Official check of the books
- 15. Tax on imports
Great Painters (hard)
Across
- 3. Spaniard who painted "The Third of May 1808"
- 4. "Luncheon of the Boating Party" artist
- 5. Norwegian who painted "The Scream"
- 7. Drip painter Jackson
- 9. Painter of ballet dancers
- 10. Pop artist of soup cans
- 14. "The Birth of Venus" painter
- 15. English painter of stormy seas
- 16. Spaniard who painted "Guernica"
- 17. French master of color and cutouts
Down
- 1. Surrealist of melting clocks
- 2. "Girl with a Pearl Earring" painter
- 4. "The School of Athens" artist
- 6. American Impressionist known for mothers and children
- 8. Mexican self-portraitist Frida
- 11. "Water Lilies" Impressionist
- 12. "Nighthawks" painter
- 13. Dutch master of "The Night Watch"
Inventors & Inventions (hard)
Across
- 4. Telephone inventor Alexander Graham
- 9. Bifocals and lightning rod inventor
- 10. Navigator's magnetic tool
- 12. Power behind Watt's engine
- 15. Detection system using radio waves
- 16. Tiny switch that replaced the vacuum tube
- 17. Phonograph inventor
- 18. Surname of the Kitty Hawk brothers
Down
- 1. He studied Jupiter's moons through a spyglass
- 2. Cotton gin inventor Eli
- 3. Pioneer of alternating current
- 5. Discoverer of radium, Marie
- 6. Nobel's explosive
- 7. Morse's message sender
- 8. Focused beam of light
- 11. Radio pioneer
- 13. He made milk safer
- 14. Inventor's legal protection
Rare Words (hard)
Across
- 2. Having mixed feelings
- 4. Very talkative
- 5. Showing off book learning
- 8. Generous and forgiving
- 9. Archrival
- 12. Fond of company
- 14. Harsh mix of sounds
- 15. Using few words
- 16. Fawning; too eager to please
- 17. Idealistic but impractical
- 18. Model of excellence
Down
- 1. Sweet-sounding
- 3. Fussy about details
- 6. Understood by only a few
- 7. Highest point
- 10. Flatterer; yes-man
- 11. Harmful in a gradual way
- 13. Reserved; saying little
Poetry & Prose (hard)
Across
- 6. Longer than a short story, shorter than a novel
- 7. Section after the story ends
- 10. Writing that mocks to make a point
- 11. Comparison using "like" or "as"
- 12. Three-line Japanese poem
- 13. Main character
- 16. Short tale with a moral
- 17. Story with a hidden meaning
- 18. Poem mourning the dead
Down
- 1. Group of lines in a poem
- 2. Brief summary of a plot
- 3. Five-line humorous verse
- 4. Indirect reference to another work
- 5. Wild exaggeration
- 8. Pair of rhyming lines
- 9. Author's account of his or her own life
- 14. Gap between what is said and what is meant
- 15. Comic imitation
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