Here are the Letter Boxed January 05, 2024 Answers from New York Times Games. Our solutions and answers are 100% valid and accurate. We suggest trying to solve the game on your own before using the help of our website.
Sides of this Letter Box are:
RALIFUTXZNEB
The answers are:
FERTILIZEEXURBAN
FRIEZE – EXEUNT – TABLE. Will be interested to see if there’s a two word solution that doesn’t use an -IZE or related spelling, so valid for us Brits!
I think you’re right Steve. 🙂
Besides FERTILIZE and FERTILIZABLE, the only other combo I’m seeing is:
INFANTILIZE—EXURB (and EXURBIA, etc…), but it still has the IZE ending
Would this work?
UNFAZABLE* / EXURBANITE
Good one. 👍
Which is surprising given the fact that LB apparently uses the OED.
OA.
Haven’t we had exurban before ?
Ha! PG, I thought the same, then used their Search Box. Sure enough EXURBAN showed up on May 22, 2023.
Yes, only got this one because of learning the word from that previous puzzle.
I think growing up, we would have called it (the exurbs) the countryside. I can’t find anything online that makes a clear distinction between the two for me.
I wondered about the difference too. Maybe it’s shift in focus. If your default is country(ish), then a concentration of people stands out: urban. But Exurb (and Suburb) start with the idea of a city at the center.
When I lived in Princeton, NJ, people routinely referred to it as an exurb for New York and Philadelphia, because an astonishing number of people commuted all the way into those cities for work on a daily basis. But it was a separate community, not physically attached to either, and therefore not a suburb.
DW, now that would justify Exurb’s usefulness and makes sense: not just “beyond the suburbs” but a feeder town into an even larger metropolitan area.
also got OA, glad I got it relatively quickly
INFANTILIZE – EXURBAN
Same here. What’s funny is that I worked with FERTILIZE and FERTILIZER for a long time and couldn’t get the solve. When I switched to INFANTLILIZE I got to EXURBAN right away.
Infantilize-Exurban here too.
URBANIZE / EXITE / ELF
FRIEZE / EXIT / TUNABLE
BANZAI / INFATUATE / ELIXIR
Exurbanite Elf Fez — led to oa. Good description of the Elks Club
OA for me. I also recognised EXURBAN from a previous puzzle and remember feeling annoyed at the time that I didn’t like the word. (Not used in British English. 🤨) Tried to make ELIXIR work. Also FLEXIBLE.
Oh, those two are nice.
Even INFLEXIBLE, which (I’m pretty sure) is also unpairable.
OA. Saw Exurban right off, having learned it, like others, from LB. The one I wanted to work was Luxuriant but wasn’t seeing its partner.
OA with a feeling of deja vu also. Thinking of green lawns for theme.
FERTILIZABLE – EXULTANT
INFANTILIZE – EXURB(IA)
Fertilizable – Exeunt for me.
same here — but would have liked to do unfertilizable – ex!
FERTILIZABLE – EXULTANT here too! 😃
INFANTALIZE-EXURBIA here
I had been sitting on urbanize and infantile both and I was struggling to even find any other words.
I did get there though. I got INFANTILIZE-EXURB I was going to be exurban, but rememebered exurb was a word.
Fertilizable exeunt
infantilize – exurb
Infantilize-Exurb. Fastest I’ve ever gotten a two word solution. Took me until today to get yesterday’s and then got this in under a minute. You are a fickle foe, Letter Boxed!
I tried infantalize but it did not work because the A and the L are on the same side
Found the longer EXURBANITE first but then found the OA. Spent a while on LUXURIANT and INFLEXIBLE. My ability to solve these seems to be tied to be willingness to give up my attachments to early finds that don’t pan out quickly!
Somehow missed FERTILIZE. Quit with 3w: EXURBANITE ELF FEZ.
OA, fairly quickly, after entirely missing out on playing yesterday. This one is greatly limited by the presence of Z and X and the absence of E. At least they didn’t throw in J, K, or Y!
OA
OA
fertilizable / exurbanite
brief / fertilizable / exurban
fertilizable / exiler / runt
fertilizer / returnable / exert
Jill reports that she has been “locked out of the clubhouse yet again for the past couple of days,” so she has asked me to post this poem, drawn from yesterday’s array:
SUNWARD on TAILWINDS*
Moonlit in the Arctic sandpit
Lunatics Antarctic bound,
Sail past the tundra’s river spawn,
Past the culprits, Dadaist-drawn:
A cultist’s pulpit, a Darwinian crawl;
Purist naiad, in rustic sprawl,
A Tsarist’s stunt, a Spaniard’s drawl,
A patrician critic’s lazy scrawl
In paint, patinaed on a wall.
Slow, a sound in glow of dawn,
The Beagle`w spirit’s drastic groan
Curtails the anguish, sees it gone.
The sails usurp, uncurl, unwind,
First to wind on wisps of air;
Then wails an ultra-supplicant,
Sunward on tailwinds, a runic star.
*Almost all words are from the Jan 4 array.
Legend! Thanks, Jill, DW.
Lovely image. DW, how did resist adding a bird?
Good job, you brainiacs! I got nuthin…
Surprised not to see bauxite posted although i could find no match
Fertilizable Exeunt
I got stuck on… Just call me Inflexible. 😄
I have to keep reminding myself Americans use Z where us Aussies and Brits use S. We buy Fertiliser. I knew that though, so no excuses really
OA and was sure it would be. Spent a while on URBANIZE and EXULT first before stumbling onto FERTILIZE.
Here is the full list including Scrabble words:
** Don’t look at the list if you haven’t finished solving the puzzle **
(The first number is a count and the second number is the number of letters used)
1 – 16 fertilize / exurban
2 – 19 fertilize / exurbanite
3 – 18 fertilizable / exeunt
4 – 20 fertilizable / exultant
5 – 19 fertilizable / exurban
6 – 22 fertilizable / exurbanite
7 – 16 infantilize / exurb
8 – 18 infantilize / exurban
9 – 21 infantilize / exurbanite
10 – 18 infantilize / exurbia
11 – 19 fabulize* / exurbanite
12 – 20 unfazable* / exurbanite
INFANTILIZE EXURBAN as an alternative…