Maleskan

English

Etymology

From Maleska +‎ -n.

Adjective

Maleskan (comparative more Maleskan, superlative most Maleskan)

1. Of or pertaining to the style or tenure of New York Times crossword puzzle editor Eugene Maleska, thought now to feature needless obscurity and difficulty

See also

• Shortzian

References

• Amlen, Deb (October 25, 2012). Truncated Parlor Piece, The New York Times. "I was lulled into a false sense of confidence in the northeast, continued my way down the grid, and found that I kept stopping to marvel at the Things That Seemed Eerily Maleskan."
• Litzer Get-Together at ACPT, March Litzer of the Month Lynn Feigenbaum, Weng and Maleska Rejection Letters, Almost at 15,400, In the Final Decade, and What Makes a Puzzle Last, Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project. "Likewise, I noticed that many newer cruciverbalists (particularly crossword bloggers and commenters) had started to consider the term 'Maleskan' synonymous with "bad." At the beginning of the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project, I naturally assumed that all the puzzles I'd encounter would be boring, old-fashioned, and somewhat sloppy by today's standards, yet this was not the case."
• Sunday, April 10, 2016, Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle. "But fill this rough / dated / Maleskan simply shouldn't be allowed to dominate a NYT crossword in the 21st century."