Start to escalate Crossword Clue

We have the 6-letter answer for Start to escalate crossword clue, last seen in the NYT Crossword February 23, 2026 puzzle. This answer will help you finish the puzzle you’re working on.

Start to escalate Crossword Answer

↓45.

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Helpful Hints

Hint 1: Clue Definitions

ESCALATE (verb)
1. increase in extent or intensity
START (verb)
1. get off the ground
2. bulge outward
START (noun)
1. the time at which something is supposed to begin
2. a line indicating the location of the start of a race or a game

More NYT Crossword (2/23/2026) Answers

Across

1. Buffoons

6. Paula of "American Idol"

11. Final use for an old T-shirt

14. Enraged

15. What "my guitar gently" does, in a classic George Harrison song

16. Mesozoic or Paleozoic

17. Home for a single guy

19. Animation sheet

20. Hole for threading a lace

21. __ fide (genuine)

22. "Please like and subscribe" and the like, on YouTube videos

25. Dr. Seuss book with the quote "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."

28. ___ Today

29. Kind of computer port

31. Like the smell of trees

32. Showed again

34. Zoom past

37. Psychotherapy switcheroos ... or what are hidden in 17-, 25-, 50- and 59-Across?

41. Text on a red, white and blue sticker

42. Gender-neutral possessive

44. Ran after

47. Opposite of WNW

49. To and ___

50. Time machine car in "Back to the Future"

53. Made a grand speech

55. Brother of Abel

56. Times between dusk and dawn

58. Had lunch, say

59. Fruit with a "bellybutton"

64. What planets revolve around

65. How often the time is 12:00 each day

66. Decorate

67. Mini-albums

68. ___ of Troy

69. Sat for a portrait

All Answers

Down

1. Accessory for a baby in a highchair

2. British singer Rita

3. Efron of "The Greatest Showman"

4. Last multiple choice option, often

5. Rude goodbye to an enemy

6. Soldier who has failed to report

7. Military cap

8. One of the three dimensions

9. Kick __ fuss

10. Counterculture drug, in brief

11. 4.75 seconds to assemble a Mr. Potato Head, per Guinness

12. Concert venues

13. Milky Way, e.g.

18. Not as much

21. "I crushed it!!!"

22. Not just my

23. ___-friendly

24. Root used in making poi

26. Large jug

27. Cage for crustaceans

30. American Psycho author ___ Easton Ellis

33. Cartoonist Bechdel

35. Mass ___ (Boston thoroughfare)

36. Give up

38. Was a passenger

39. Democrats and Socialists, with "the"

40. Father

43. Axle, e.g.

44. Jewel box

46. Extraterrestrials

48. London theater district

51. Object hitting people's heads in old cartoons

52. Siblings daughter

54. South American barbecue

57. Valley

59. High degree

60. Response to seeing an aurora, maybe

61. Rejections

62. College sr.'s test

63. 63-Down, in this puzzle

All Answers