Like Graveyards At Night Crossword Clue
By: Five Letter Words | Last edited: Apr 18, 2025
Searching for the answer to the "Like graveyards at night" clue from the April 18, 2025 New York Times Mini crossword? We've identified the exact 5-letter solution you need. For those seeking a more engaging puzzle-solving experience, we've developed interactive features to enhance your journey. Our letter-by-letter reveal tool allows you to uncover the answer gradually, while our carefully crafted hints provide alternative paths to the solution through anagrams, related clues with identical answers, or comprehensive explanations to guide your reasoning. We've also made navigating between connected clues from the same puzzle seamless, enabling you to solve multiple clues efficiently. Ready to discover this atmospheric descriptor? Let's explore the answer together!
Crossword Answer:
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About This Clue
The April 18, 2025 New York Times Mini Crossword featured the clue "Like graveyards at night" with the answer SCARY. This clue asks for an adjective that describes the ominous and frightening atmosphere commonly associated with cemeteries after dark. Graveyards at night have long been associated with feelings of fear and unease in popular culture, literature, and film. The darkness, silence, tombstones, and cultural associations with death all contribute to the spooky ambiance that makes them perfect settings for horror stories. The word "scary" precisely captures this feeling of fear or alarm that such locations can evoke.
Word Etymology and Cultural Significance
The word "scary" derives from the verb "scare," which comes from the Old Norse "skerra," meaning "to frighten" or "to terrify." It entered English around the 16th century and has maintained its meaning as something that causes fear or alarm. Graveyards have been viewed with a mixture of reverence and fear across many cultures for centuries. While they serve as resting places for the deceased and sites for mourning and remembrance during the day, nighttime transforms these spaces in the cultural imagination. The association of graveyards with the supernatural—ghosts, spirits, and other phenomena—is particularly strong at night when limited visibility, shadows, and silence combine to create an atmosphere where the imagination can run wild. This cultural understanding is reinforced through ghost stories, horror films, and Halloween traditions, which often feature cemeteries as settings for frightening encounters. The word "scary" succinctly captures this complex emotional response that combines fear, unease, and the thrill of confronting the unknown.
NYT Mini Crossword Tips
When solving evocative descriptive clues in the NYT Mini Crossword like "Like graveyards at night," consider the emotional response or atmosphere being described. The Mini typically uses straightforward, everyday vocabulary, so the most common adjective that fits the vibe is often the answer. For this particular clue, other possibilities might include words like "eerie," "spooky," "creepy," or "gloomy," but the five-letter "scary" perfectly matches both the grid requirements and the intensely frightening quality suggested by the clue. When you encounter clues that describe sensations, emotions, or atmospheres, think of the most direct and universally understood word that captures that feeling. The Mini Crossword generally avoids highly specialized vocabulary or obscure terms, instead favoring words that most solvers would readily associate with the described scenario.
Related Crossword Answers
EERIE
Clue: "Strange and frightening"
SPOOKY
Clue: "Like haunted houses"
CREEPY
Clue: "Causing an uneasy feeling of fear"
GLOOMY
Clue: "Dark and depressing"
More Clues & Answers For The New York Times Mini (April 18, 2025)
ACROSS
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