Yes, quite often when I peruse an old crossword before throwing it away, I instantly spot a missing answer. Common occurrence when doing a jigsaw puzzle. Can't find anything that will fit, walk away & when you return several pieces magically fall into place.
Roget's Thesaurus
Another obvious way is to use the dictionaries in your computer with 'grep' (if you're Linux/Unix), e.g. if you're looking for a five letter word that starts 'bli' :-
chris$ grep '^bli..$' /usr/share/dict/british-english blimp blind bling blink blips bliss blitz chris$
The matching letters don't have to be adjacent as in the above example, it's just one I did recently!
It's even better with longer words, the ^ and $ in the search fix the ends so you're only looking for words of a specific length.
Full confession mode.. I also use an ancient *Franklin Spellmaster*! Fits the breakfast table much more readily than my PC. Saves a lot of pain with an anagram feature (words list).
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