Here are the Letter Boxed February 12, 2025 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:
VRDUANEQLJCI
The answers are:
JUVENILIAACQUIRED
Instant OA
OA here too.
JUVENILIA – ACQUIRED
The young at art collection.
OA here too. I acquired some early Austen at auction. A one-off? That would be customary after yesterday’s extravaganza.
For me, it wasn’t instant OA(ts), but the5-minute microwave kid.
TI: Restoring the comic book collection in my midde-age that my parents threw out when I went to college.
OA after a little time spent with Quivering
JUVENILIA—ACQUIRED
JACQUERIE—ENLIVENED
JACQUERIE—ENDEVIL°
JACQUERIE—ENCLAVED°
Found juvenilia acquired and jacquerie enclaved.
JACQUERIE-ENLIVENED here too
And here as well. JACQUERIE: a communal uprising or revolt. Puts me in the mood for something dangerous!
Ditto
JACQUERIE—ENLIVENED
Yup
Jacqueline – Enclaved* as well!
Also found these first… Quivered, Quince, Reinquired, Claqueur, Revival, Enquired, Lacquered
Craqulure not accepted
JACQUERIE / ENLIVENED today…
JUVENILIA- ACQUIRED
Pawn Stars episode
OA… when you and your partner finally mature enough to delight in the indignities of laughing at your old diaries together.
Good one! Got Jacquerie-Enlivened. Increasingly looking like the only hope for a turnaround under new management. Also got *Enclaved.
OA
JACQUERIE-ENLIVENED
JACQUERIE-ENCLAVED*
*ENCLAVED good in OED and Scrabble US (TWL) but not LB
I’m all for learning new words when you play these kinds of games, but you can actually construct challenging puzzles without having to resort to the more arcane solutions.
I think you stumbled into the wrong vineyard.
You might be right. I was looking for the one where people are doing some real drinking, not sitting around sniffing the corks.
If you’re ever in NYC, you can always find me at Irish Whiskey Bar in Astoria, Queens.
If you want to read a little bit about me, I am featured in an article in the Dec.,1995 issue of Sports Illustrated magazine titled Your Words Against Mine. I am Richard Lund in the article and it gets into how Scrabble saved my life and helped me move on from my experience as a field radio operator in a combat unit in Vietnam.
Thanks Richie. I think I remember reading that article back then too.Appreciate.
I didn’t mean that to sound personal, but if the poulaine fits… Seriously, though, I used to play a lot more Scrabble than I do now, and I totally get that little-used words with weird spellings are part of the strategy. One of main reasons most of us do word games is to augment our vocabulary, but I just think you can construct decent puzzles using words that people are likely to encounter or use in life outside of word games.
What OA stands for, in the comments? Ps: not American.
Couldn’t find in two words but used
Julia Acquired Divine haha
Hi Phillip
OA means Official Answer. People post that when they got the same words as the suggested solution.
I thought it was Original Answer.
Thanks !
Totally agree
I hear what Sam is saying though. Personally, despite having what I like to think is a pretty extensive vocabulary, Juvenilia was a new word for me. Now after playing with this puzzle for awhile I had concluded it was going to be some kind of Juven- based word and “cheated” a bit with a Google search to see if there were some options I was unaware of. Having already seen Acquired was an easy finish from there. I do appreciate the value of a challenging puzzle, as well. And I’ll say this: at least this was a real word and not some crazy portmanteau that just hit the dictionary 30 seconds ago like Whataboutism.
Whataboutism has been around since the 70’s.
I actually got the one with “WHATABOUTISM”. I’ve been playing word games for well over fifty years, and find them much more fun when the new words you stumble across are ones you might actually use, not just those that are so obscure that the only people getting any satisfaction from finding them think they’re impressing others with some vast vocabulary. I also noticed when I was searching for a site like this to check my answers that there are cheat sites out there too. I kind of suspect that some of the contributors on here that consistently post multiple obscure entries might be getting a little help.
I knew “Juvenilia” because I read Jane Austen, and that is the title of one of her books (a collection, actually). Don’t know if Jane is “arcane” today.
When I saw it as the answer, I remembered it as referring to an artist or author’s works when they were young, am assuming that’s what the Jane Austen collection was. My point was that a puzzle can still be challenging and use words that might be better choices as part of a working vocabulary. I might easily go the rest of my life without ever encountering JUVENILIA or JACQUERIE again.
If you think JUVENILIA is an “arcane solution”, let me introduce you to a “word” Letterboxed used a couple of years ago: RAGEQUIT. I put “word” in quotation marks because this neologism can’t be found in Merriam-Webster’s online — I had to use Urban Dictionary to discern its existence and meaning. Plenty annoying.
OA in a few–which surprised me as I’m often flummoxed by J’s.
OA instantly.
JUVENILIA — ACQUIRED
JACQUERIE — ENCLAVED* (OED good, LB bad)
JACQUERIE — ENLIVED* (OED good, LB bad)
JACQERIE — ENLIVENED
I spent a ton of time with LACQUERED which did leave JUVENILIA but I couldn’t connect with anything.
juvenilia – acquired
DECLINED RAJA AQUIVER
Darn it. Typo
DECLINER RAJA AQUIVER
OA. Never heard of juvenilia but after trying everything else it occurred as a possible, ; when it hit , knew it was the answer. Never heard of Jacquerie either .
Thanks Bill. I got interviewed by SI after a Scrabble tournament at Bally’s in Vegas in the summer of ’95 and a few weeks later SI did a photo shoot of me playing Scrabble with the parkies in Washington Square Park in NYC. Good times, man. Richie
Amazing backstory, Richie! I’ll check it out on line!
I also arrived at that solution.
I got jacquerie/enlivened
OA today. Good to hold on to early works- may be valuable one day!
OA almost immediately.
Java acquired denial. I kept seeing juvenile (wouldn’t work), never considered juvenilia!
LB defeated me today. I settled for some 3 werders:
NINJA ACQUIRED DEVIL
JAVA ACQUIRED DENIAL
JAIL LACQUERED DIVINE
Struck out today — was laser-focused on ACQUIRE(D), and lamented the inability to play JUVENILE the whole time I was searching. Never seen JUVENILIA before, so I’m happy I didn’t spend TOO long searching in vain.
I appreciate Sam and Matt’s criticisms, as well as Richie’s perspective and personal background. As a former magazine editor, Letterboxed is by far the most satisfying word game I play, but also the most frustrating — it’s hard to tell how long to keep working on a puzzle before giving up because the answer might be some obscure stretch of a solution that I simply will never get. The tricky part is what constitutes a “stretch”; I also got WHATABOUTISM when it showed up awhile back and didn’t think of it as being too egregious, but I have a long list of missed solutions I’ve been miffed by (I’m looking at you, BUSHWA – ALKALIZED).
To me, the line between a good and bad Letterboxed puzzle is when the official answer is both excessively obscure/questionable, AND when it’s the ONLY viable solution. To me that commits the same puzzle faux pas as when two obscure entries in a crossword overlap, making it impossible to solve if you don’t know either. Singular solution days are also just less interesting discuss and dissect here, as I think most on this forum will testify.
The best explanation I’ve seen of the job of a puzzle constructor is that it’s their job to make a puzzle that’s as maximally challenging, while still being possible for most people to work their way to the solution. Word puzzles are tricky in this regard, because at some point the user’s vocabulary WILL be a factor, and ultimately I like that Letterboxed is as difficult as it is (and it wouldn’t be if most people could find the two-word solution). In my opinion, Ezersky (the editor of Letterboxed) is sometimes guilty of sniffing his own farts when it comes to solution choices, but I’m willing to write off the occasional miss for the well-earned triumphs on other days.
Thank you for this very interesting and enlightening comment, Jef! And so well-written! Do you do this for a living?
JACQUERIE ENLIVENED