Here are the Letter Boxed March 21, 2026 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:
RTAJUIDEXNMP
The answers are:
PANJANDRUMMIXTURE
Got as far as ADMIXTURE, and knew it was going to be some garbage OA. Glad I didn’t waste any more time on this one.
I was the same and was surprised intermixture was allowed but again got me nowhere. I would expect today is a one word solution.
The guy who creates these is beginning to remind me of one of those guitar players who can play a whole bunch of notes all over the neck, really really fast, and can’t understand why everybody’s not impressed, except it all just kind of sounds like crap.
I sympathize with the people who haven’t even clicked on this site yet because they don’t want to see a spoiler, and are spending an hour or more trying to come up with a word that’s familiar to maybe one in a thousand people. I totally get wanting to expand your vocabulary playing word games, but I’ve gotten to where at some point I’m just wasting time that’s better spent doing something else. I can pick up a dictionary and flip to a random word I’m not familiar with and feel like I’m making better use of my time.
I got the OA, but had no idea what a panjandrum is until looking it up. And a bit annoyed to see that this was the solution today.
The only possible match for ADMIXTURE I could think of is JAPANIANA, a quaint variant of Japonica. Or in the case of Madama Butterfly by Puccini, a descriptive categorization. In any case it would be capitalized.
Puccini: A Listener’s Guide
By John Bell Young · 2016
Same here!
Also found JEREMIAD and MAXIMUM, to no avail…
I’ve been checking from time to time to see if the negative vibes have cleared. Looks like they have! So I’m back, at least occasionally.
As it happens, I got to OA instantly, but only because as a kid I read Secret Weapons of World War II, by Gerald Pawle. It had me in stitches. People came up with all kinds of cockamamie ideas, one of which was called The Great Panjandrum. If I recall correctly, it was a massive rolling bomb. Almost as goofy as the idea of aircraft carriers made out of ice and plywood dust.
Anyway, IMHO this is definitely not the kind of word that should be unavoidable in a solution. It’s far too obscure.
Good to see an LB “elder” back DW!
Thank you! Nice to be back.
Reminds me of a BeeGees album called “Odessa”, which I’ve never actually heard, but I believe is a kind-of rock opera about a shipwrecked sailor who carves a ship out of an iceberg to make his way home.
Today sucked. Singular solutions with obscure words few people know aren’t fun. I made need a long break from this game. It’s not what it used to be.
Sam, you’ve outdone yourself – PANJANDRUM, seriously? I checked Alice Yang’s letter boxed solver, and every possible solution requires the use of this ridiculous word.
I admit that losing is a part of the game, totally fair – you also get to learn new words this way. Fine. But losing when you have ZERO chance of winning? That’s downright unfair. Anyone with a fair sense of logic would know that less than 1% of the population is familiar with the outdated word.
And this has not just happened once. BLATHERSKITE, AVOIRDUPOIS, FAUXHAWK and GRAWLIX are few notable examples.
Sam, if you’re reading this, please understand: we don’t have a problem with you using obscure words for the OA. But making it so that it becomes impossible to solve unless you know that particular word is very frustrating. Please allow more options.
Puzzles which rely on words as obscure as these prevent us from maintaining a streak longer than even a fortnight.
Irim and RF, hoping to see you soon. I haven’t seen you both yet, wishing you all the very best and to everyone else still trying. To those who managed to solve today’s fiendish grid – congrats, I’m thoroughly impressed!
Happy weekend to everyone!
———————————
My three-word solve:
JAM – MIXUP – PRETEND
———————————
17/21, 69/80
Current streak: 0
*Alice Liang
I just couldn’t let go of ADMIXTURE but I had to. I was elated when I first spotted it. Thought I would have a solution but got dismayed with leftover letters JPN. My 2 hours was up but along the way I had frequent urges to give up because of the pesky J. Other long words I found were only PERMANENT, JAUNTIER and REPRIMAND. I’m relieved when the OA doesn’t contain ADMIXTURE in it because I would be so pissed otherwise. But still the hilarity of the OA is beyond me!
Kanishk-boy, I failed too. Let’s wait if Miss Irim managed to solve the grid today.
16/21.
69/80.
I also found REPRIMAND and PERMANENT. I didn’t find ADMIXTURE, but I played around with PREMIXTURE and PAJAMA for hours.
I’m sure Irim will manage to solve this one. She always posts late on the weekends.
I’m on the loser bus as well today, but now not feeling so bad about it. Had Admixture early, and even premixture, Intermixture. Best I could do was pair with Pajama and then N remained. 76/80, 19/21, 0, 36
Hello, loves, here after THREE HOURS of this. I don’t often use this word, but today, Sam was an absolute chutiya. (Kanishk will understand).
Each side was fiendish, from TRA eliminating far too many, as well as JUI and EX on the same side. Any ONE of those would have been challenging, but three was a nightmare and just downright nasty. Again, this should allow for a number of solutions. I started playing with PANJ, JAPANI, JAPANDI – which is a real word, an architectural style, and branching out from there.
I admit to using a word search site for words with JPNA and eventually tried PANJANDRUM. But WHAT the ACTUAL F***, Sam, an absolute waste of an afternoon and deeply unsatisfying.
Stop acting like some brat who spend his youth in his mother’s basement and start doing some real puzzles. A pyrrhic victory at best, and for me, not a real solve.
I had planned a tough puzzle for today, but because of today’s atrocious grid I figured people might want an easy one to relieve themselves:
DSO
KEP
LTM
FAR
Hint: Surface (7, 8)
D _ _ K _ _ _ P – P _ _ _ F _ _ M
My answer is:
DESKTOP – PLATFORM.
Congratulations, RF!! 🎉🎉
You got the OA!!! 🥳
DESKTOP – PLATFORM
(I made a mistake in the hint – there should be only two blanks between K and P)
👍
PANJANDRUM MIXTE in 30 seconds. What now? The dreaded Connections?
Haha! My order is wordle connections mini spelling bee letterboxed. Mini is the one I have most trouble with percentage wise
I do Letter Boxed before Spelling Bee, and glad you knew PANJANDRUM. Wartime novels, I assume?
My voracious reading began during Viet Nam times, just picked up things along the way since. Sympathize with LBers
I stopped doing Wordle went they started repeating already used words. Spelling Bee is fun but their word list is too restrictive.
Yep. I kinda think of SB as a warmup for LB. Sometimes wonder if the different thought requirements , just before, slow you down a little on LB. Perhaps some of our neuroscience knowledgeable players can enlighten?
PANJANDRUM-MIXTE here too. I had heard of PANJANDRUM but had to look up the spelling. MIXTE was just a guess; I probably would have found MIXTURE if I’d kept at it.
MAXITE works too.
OA but I had to resort to my excel file
Of words containing some of the more challenging letters.
OA but it took me nearly an hour. I’m just happy to have found a solution because I rarely solve puzzles that include both X and J.
I guess it all depends on the juxtaposition of the letters.
JUXTAPOSITION should have been an option. *still grousing*
Panjandrum mixture. Tried admixture a few minutes, tried Japan on a lark, surprised it was accepted, but it suggested panjandrum
PUNJAʷ—ADMIXTURE
PANJANDRUM—MIXTURE
(suspected singular solution)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ʷ Wiktionary
punja (uncountable) : (India) cultivable dry land
Also, JAPANDI*-INTERMIXTURE
Japandi being a mixture of Japanese and Scandi styles
Good one, Irim.
There’s been a lot of words from India I’ve learned lately from playing LB.
I had even tried PUNJA as a guess, didn’t think to check Wiktionary after it wasn’t accepted on my go-to word-check site, or I’d have called it a win with an asterisk.
It seemed to me it should have been accepted as a culturally borrowed word.
I only found it because I recently imported the English section of Wiktionary into my personal database. It has been a double-edged sword however. While it contains many more words than OED or MW, which I like, it also contains hyphenated words, as well as intentional misspellings of common words. The hyphens I can filter out via SQL, but the misspellings are sometimes a bother.
Really glad I gave up as soon as I did!
Just to add two cents more, panjandrum is actually a useful word with which to satirize one’s local elected officials or perhaps to poke fun at a busybody neighborhood committee. Haha. Known a few!
I don’t feel bad about giving up on this one.
I’m with you
JANAPA* ADMIXTURE
*OEM, MW
(Found by cheating and searching words with P and J)