How to Use rebus in a Sentence

rebus

noun

• When read across, each theme answer’s rebus is a Greek letter.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 5 Nov. 2026
• In a rebus crossword, certain squares contain more than one letter.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 5 Nov. 2026
• Esc — toggles rebus mode Delete — delete cell and go to previous cell.
  — San Francisco Chronicle, 14 Mar. 2024
• But shouldn’t this rebus apply to every O in the puzzle, not just the ones in the theme answers?
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 3 Sep. 2026
• There’s a rebus square, a visual joke and a truly elegant design choice.
  — Sam Corbin, New York Times, 22 July 2026
• There is a rebus element in today’s grid, which means that solvers must write more than one letter in certain squares.
  — New York Times, 31 July 2025
• Armed with this method, solvers can triangulate the remaining two rebus squares.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 1 Oct. 2026
• Others contain rebus elements, and some are just plain witty.
  — Sam Corbin, New York Times, 22 July 2026
• Each rebus is used in the down entry in an unusual doubling effect that took me a long gawking minute to figure out.
  — Caitlin Lovinger, New York Times, 18 Apr. 2026
• While each rebus square features a different letter pair, the couplings aren’t random.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 2 July 2026
• The clue’s mention of three specific squares could indicate three rebuses.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 1 Oct. 2026
• There must be a rebus square here, which solvers can pinpoint by cracking the entries that intersect 17A.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 1 Oct. 2026
• And finally, to the solver’s chagrin or delight, there are no indicators of which answers will have rebus squares.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 2 July 2026
• This puzzle features a whopping 13 rebus squares, scattered across the grid in no discernible pattern.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 2 July 2026
• Remember when some of you asked why there is never a warning about the presence of rebuses or other tricky elements?
  — New York Times, 2 Oct. 2025
• Each circled square contains not one, but two rebus elements — each a number, spelled out — that complete a pair of crossing entries.
  — Eleanor Kagan, New York Times, 27 Nov. 2025
• Spacebars and rebus assists Answers can be multiple words.
  — San Francisco Chronicle, 14 Mar. 2024
• Today’s Theme This is a rebus crossword, in which some squares contain multiple letters.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 1 Oct. 2026
• Start by studying the puzzle’s theme revealer, which is often the clearest indicator of a rebus.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 1 Oct. 2026
• After all, this puzzle has several answers that are evidently correct, but don’t fit in the grid — a telltale sign of a shove-’em-in rebus.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 22 July 2026
• After solving Thursday crosswords for quite a few years, my ability to spot a rebus element in the grid has improved manyfold.
  — New York Times, 31 July 2025
• Each team was given an envelope containing twelve brainteasers—rebuses, letter grids—that could be solved in any order, leading to sites around the theatre.
  — Michael Schulman, New Yorker, 15 Dec. 2025
• The drapery or scrollwork around a shield is called a lambrequin, a five-petaled flower is called a cinquefoil, and an emblem or animal that puns on the bearer’s name is called a rebus.
  — Helen Lewis, The Atlantic, 9 June 2026
• Thursdays and, less frequently, Sundays are typically when crosswords with rebuses or other tricks appear.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 10 Sep. 2026
• After last Thursday’s rebus extravaganza, solvers who aren’t fans of shoving multiple letters into a square will be pleased to learn that no such smushing is required today.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 9 July 2026
• The effect of Gastrotypographicalassemblage is like that of a Surrealist rebus, mixing the likenesses of things with their words.
  — Alec Mapes-Frances, Artforum, 1 Nov. 2026
• As if that weren’t enough, each of the 13 rebuses is a different pair of letters — cracking one rebus doesn’t automatically provide the others (though they are connected).
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 2 July 2026
• Today’s Theme There’s no rebus that calls for entering multiple letters into a square today, but there is a rebus in the traditional sense, where a symbol is used to represent a word.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 3 Sep. 2026
• Their themes tend to be trickier than the ones encountered in early-week puzzles, often by featuring rebuses, in which a group of letters, or an entire word, may be represented by a symbol, picture or other signifier.
  — Sean McGowan, New York Times, 2 Apr. 2026
• This crossword, constructed by Yitzi Snow in his debut for The New York Times, contains a relatively straightforward rebus (if there is such a thing).
  — Sam Corbin, New York Times, 26 Feb. 2026