On lazy Sunday afternoons, my friends and I compete to finish two-speed crosswords the fastest, switching between rapid clues and slower, tricky ones.

She arranged the notes into a crosswordlike grid, hoping the intersecting hints would reveal the hidden message.

She finally learned to love crosswordese, recognizing that the rare, archaic, and dialectal words it contains are often the only way to finish a tight grid.

Her notes were annoyingly crosswordy, full of terse clues and intersecting hints.