| 100% | HATH | 4 | "Summer's lease ___ all too short a date": Shakespeare |
| 83% | LEASE | 5 | "...Summer's ___ hath all too short a date" (Shakespeare line) |
| 36% | NOVELLA | 7 | A short book that's too long to be a short story |
| 35% | SUN | 3 | Body that's visible only once every seven years, in the Ray Bradbury short story "All Summer in a Day" |
| 34% | BIO | 3 | Text in a dating profile, for short |
| 34% | BIO | 3 | Part of a dating profile, for short |
| 34% | THEE | 4 | Shakespeare's "Shall I compare ___ to a summer's day?" |
| 34% | BIO | 3 | Personal blurb on a dating app, for short |
| 34% | MID | 3 | Summer prefix in a Shakespeare title |
| 33% | NUB | 3 | Piece that might be too short for a sharpener |
| 32% | VOCAB | 5 | All the words in a language, for short |
| 32% | THEE | 4 | "Shall I compare ___ to a summer's day?" by William Shakespeare |
| 32% | SEINFELD | 8 | Who called a date "a job interview that lasts all night" |
| 32% | TRUST | 5 | “Love all, ___ a few, do wrong to none”: Shakespeare |
| 32% | CAVY | 4 | S American short-tailed rodent with a stocky body |
| 32% | SLASH | 5 | One of two on a short date? |
| 31% | ODS | 3 | Takes too much of a drug, for short |
| 31% | ODS | 3 | Takes too much of a narcotic, for short |
| 31% | ODS | 3 | Ingests too much of a drug, for short |
| 31% | THEE | 4 | "Shall I compare ___ to a summer's day?" (start of a Shakespeare sonnet) |
| 31% | XERS | 4 | A quarter of all Battle of the Generations contestants, for short |
| 31% | SEP | 3 | Month with 09 in all its dates, for short |
| 30% | OBIT | 4 | News article that may include a funeral date, for short |
| 30% | ETTU | 4 | Shakespeare's "You, too?" |
| 29% | MACBETH | 7 | Shakespeare's shortest tragedy |
| 29% | IPUTMYSELFINTOTHYFILE | 21 | Shakespeare on planting a virus? ("All's Well That Ends Well" III, 3) |
| 29% | SRS | 3 | S.A.T. takers, for short. Also a system used in airbags : Abbr |
| 29% | THESCOTTISHPLAY | 15 | Superstitious thespian's name for a work of Shakespeare ... from which 21-, 23-, 37-, 58- and 60-Down all come |
| 29% | IAMBS | 5 | Shakespeare's "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" has five of them |
| 29% | LIT | 3 | Shakespeare's work, for short |