| 100% | ARENAFOOTBALL | 13 | Sport played in the first word of its name |
| 86% | FIELDHOCKEY | 11 | Sport played on the first word of its name |
| 86% | TABLETENNIS | 11 | Sport played on the first word of its name |
| 55% | NEW | 3 | First word in the names of four states |
| 55% | SAN | 3 | First word in the names of many California cities |
| 54% | LITE | 4 | First word in the rhyming name of a peg toy |
| 53% | RAE | 3 | First word in the name of the "Black Beatles" hip-hop duo |
| 53% | LOS | 3 | First word in the name of the U.S.'s most populous county |
| 51% | STATE | 5 | With 70-Across, what the first word of each long Across answer is vis-à-vis the bracketed place in its clue |
| 49% | TWEET | 5 | The first was in July 2006, but it was the American Dialect Society's word of the year in 2009 |
| 49% | ARMS | 4 | The first word of Virgil's Aeneid in some English translations |
| 49% | ISNT | 4 | First word of "Send in the Clowns" |
| 49% | HOW | 3 | First word of "Blowin' in the Wind" |
| 49% | SANTA | 5 | It can precede eight first names in this puzzle to form the names of California cities |
| 48% | LAS | 3 | First word of the largest city in Nevada |
| 48% | SAN | 3 | First word of many city names in California |
| 48% | NOTRE | 5 | First word of the Lord's Prayer in French |
| 48% | ISNT | 4 | First word of Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns" |
| 48% | SAN | 3 | First word of the second-largest city in California |
| 47% | GOREVIDALNOVELS | 15 | What the first words of eight long answers in this puzzle are |
| 47% | IREAD | 5 | First words of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" |
| 47% | REO | 3 | 1976 rock album, or the first word of the band that made it |
| 47% | UPON | 4 | Word in the first sentence of a fairy tale |
| 47% | BAIN | 4 | Donald who wrote a 1963 "memoir" seen in the first words of 17-, 30-, 46- and 60-Across |
| 47% | MAKECONCESSIONS | 15 | Compromise, or what solvers do when filling in the first words of 17-, 23-, 40-, and 51-Across? |
| 46% | FOREFATHER | 10 | Ancestor ... or what the first word of seven answers in this puzzle can have? |
| 46% | THOU | 4 | First word in most of the Ten Commandments |
| 46% | ERODED | 6 | Eaten away, like the first words of 17-, 31-, 48- and 65-Across in order? |
| 46% | SEE | 3 | Word in the first line of the U.S. national anthem |