You're staring at the grid. The black and white squares are mocking you, and you've got a pesky little gap right in the middle of the Tuesday New York Times or maybe a quick LA Times puzzle. The clue says "take turns." It's four letters long. Your brain immediately jumps to "dual" or "swap," but those don't fit the crossing letters. Honestly, crossword puzzles are designed to do exactly this—take a simple concept and make it feel like a high-stakes interrogation.
The most common answer for the take turns crossword clue 4 letters is ALTS.
Wait, is that it? Just four letters? Yeah, but it's more nuanced than you think. Crossword constructors love the word ALTS because it's a "vowel-heavy" or "useful-letter" word that helps them bridge difficult sections of a grid. In the world of cruciverbalism (the fancy word for people who build or solve these things), certain words appear way more often than they do in real life. We call this "crosswordese."
Why ALTS dominates the grid
If you've ever played a game where people rotate, you're alternating. Shorten that down for a tight grid, and you get "alts." It’s a common abbreviation for "alternates." While you might not walk into a board game night and say, "Hey, let's do some alts on this controller," in the logic of a puzzle constructor like Will Shortz or Brendan Emmett Quigley, it makes perfect sense.
Sometimes the clue might be slightly different to lead you to the same place. You might see "Swaps out, for short" or "Rotates, briefly." The "for short" or "briefly" is your dead giveaway that the answer is an abbreviation.
But what if ALTS doesn't work?
Sometimes the clue is looking for an action. EDIT could technically be a "take turns" in a very specific, weirdly worded editorial context, but that’s a stretch. If the clue is "Take turns (at)," you might be looking for SEES. As in, someone "sees to" something in a rotation. However, that’s rare.
Another frequent flier for a 4-letter answer is SPELL.
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Wait, that's five letters. See? Even experts get tripped up. Let's stick to the four-letter realm.
Other 4-letter possibilities for "take turns"
If ALTS isn't the winner, you should check your "crosses"—the words running vertically through your target word. If you have an 'E' as the second letter, you might be looking at RELY. No, that doesn't fit the meaning.
What about ACTS? In a play, actors take turns performing. It’s a common misdirection. A constructor might use "Take turns in a play" to lead you to ACTS.
Let's look at USES. If two people are sharing a single tool, they "take turns" using it. "Uses, in a way" could be a clue. It’s a bit of a "lateral thinking" move.
Then there is PASS. In a game, when you take turns, you eventually pass the play to the next person. If the clue is "Take turns, perhaps," and you've got a 'P' and an 'S,' you're likely looking at PASS.
Crossword puzzles aren't just about vocabulary; they are about understanding the vibe of the constructor. A Monday puzzle is going to be straightforward. "Take turns" will almost certainly be ALTS. By Saturday, that same clue could lead you to something completely bizarre and figurative.
The psychology of the 4-letter crossword word
Four-letter words are the structural beams of the crossword world. They are long enough to provide a lot of "crosses" but short enough to fit into those annoying corners.
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When you see a clue like take turns crossword clue 4 letters, your first job is to look at the punctuation. Is there a question mark at the end? If so, the answer is a pun. If there’s a "for short," it’s an abbreviation. If there are no special markings, it’s a literal definition.
ALTS is the literal king here.
Why you might be stuck
If you are 100% sure the answer isn't ALTS, you might have a mistake in one of your connecting words. This is the "cascade effect." You think the vertical word is "LOPE" when it's actually "LEAP," and suddenly the 'O' you were relying on for your 4-letter word is an 'E.'
Always re-verify your vowels. In 4-letter words, the vowels are usually in the second or third position. In ALTS, the 'A' starts it off, which is actually a bit rarer and makes it a "heavy" word for the top of a grid section.
Real-world examples of this clue
In the New York Times crossword (specifically the one from July 2022, if we're being precise), the clue "Take turns" appeared with the answer ALTS. It has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post puzzles with similar frequency.
Constructors like Lynn Lempel, known for her elegant Monday puzzles, often use words like ALTS because they are "clean." They don't require the solver to know an obscure 14th-century poet or the chemical name for a rare earth metal.
On the flip side, if you're doing a British-style "cryptic" crossword, "Take turns" could be part of an anagram or a hidden word. But for the standard American crossword, you're looking for that direct synonym or the shortened version of a rotation.
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Beyond the 4-letter word: Staying sharp
Solving crosswords is a muscle. The more you do them, the more you realize that "Take turns" is just one of about 500 "standard" clues that repeat. You start to see the grid not as a series of random questions, but as a language.
If you're hitting a wall, here is what you do. Step away. Go get a coffee. Your brain's "diffuse mode" of thinking—the state where you aren't actively focusing on a problem—is actually better at solving linguistic puzzles than your "focused mode." You'll come back to the puzzle, look at the clue, and the word ALTS or PASS will just jump out at you.
Common Synonyms to Keep in Your Back Pocket:
- ALTS (The gold standard)
- PASS (The "game" version)
- ACTS (The "stage" version)
- USES (The "sharing" version)
Most people get frustrated because they think they don't have a big enough vocabulary. That's usually not the problem. The problem is usually a "mental block" on the structure of the word.
Actionable strategy for your next puzzle
To stop getting stuck on clues like take turns crossword clue 4 letters, start building a "mental dictionary" of crosswordese. When you find an answer that feels "cheap" or "too easy," like ALTS, write it down or make a mental note.
Next time you see "Take turns," "Rotate," or "Swap positions," your brain will automatically fire off the four-letter candidates.
- Step 1: Check if the clue implies an abbreviation.
- Step 2: Look at the vowels you already have from crossing words.
- Step 3: If you have an 'A' or an 'L,' try ALTS first.
- Step 4: If you have a 'P' or an 'S,' try PASS.
- Step 5: If neither works, re-solve the words that cross through that section; one of them is likely wrong.
Crosswords are supposed to be a challenge, but they shouldn't be a headache. Understanding the common patterns used by constructors turns you from a casual solver into someone who can breeze through a Wednesday puzzle without breaking a sweat. Keep your eyes on the grid and don't let a simple four-letter word ruin your streak.