Cryptic crossword
A cryptic crossword is a crossword puzzle in which each clue is a word puzzle. Cryptic crosswords are particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where they originated, as well as Ireland, the Netherlands, and in several Commonwealth nations, including Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malta, New Zealand, and South Africa. [|Compilers] of cryptic crosswords are commonly called setters in the UK and constructors in the US. Particularly in the UK, a distinction may be made between cryptics and quick crosswords, and sometimes two sets of clues are given for a single puzzle grid.
Cryptic crossword puzzles come in two main types: the basic cryptic in which each clue answer is entered into the diagram normally, and themed or variety cryptics, in which some or all of the answers must be altered before entering, usually in accordance with a hidden pattern or rule which must be discovered by the solver.
History and development
Cryptic crosswords originated in the UK. The first British crossword puzzles appeared around 1923 and were purely definitional, but from the mid-1920s they began to include cryptic material: not cryptic clues in the modern sense, but anagrams, classical allusions, incomplete quotations, and other references and wordplay. Torquemada (Edward Powys Mathers), who set for The Saturday Westminster from 1925 and for The Observer from 1926 until his death in 1939, was the first setter to use cryptic clues exclusively and is often credited as the inventor of the cryptic crossword.The first newspaper crossword appeared in the Sunday Express on November 2, 1924. Crosswords were gradually taken up by other newspapers, appearing in the Daily Telegraph from 1925, The Manchester Guardian from 1929 and The Times from 1930. These newspaper puzzles were almost entirely non-cryptic at first and gradually used more cryptic clues, until the fully cryptic puzzle as known today became widespread. In some papers this took until about 1960. Puzzles appeared in The Listener from 1930, but this was a weekly magazine rather than a newspaper, and the puzzles were much harder than the newspaper ones, though again they took a while to become entirely cryptic. Composer Stephen Sondheim, a lover of puzzles, is credited with introducing cryptic crosswords to American audiences, through a series of puzzles he created for New York in 1968 and 1969.
Torquemada's puzzles were extremely obscure and difficult, and later setters reacted against this tendency by developing a standard for fair clues, ones that can be solved, at least in principle, by deduction, without needing leaps of faith or insights into the setter's thought processes.
The basic principle of fairness was set out by Listener setter Afrit (Alistair Ferguson Ritchie) in his book Armchair Crosswords, wherein he credits it to the fictional Book of the Crossword:
An example of a clue which cannot logically be taken the right way:
Here the composer intends the answer to be, with "hat" the definition, "could be" the [|anagram] indicator, and the anagram fodder. I.e., "derby" is an anagram of "be dry". But "be" is doing double duty, and this means that any attempt to read the clue cryptically in the form " " fails: if "be" is part of the anagram indicator, then the fodder is too short, but if it is part of the fodder, there is no anagram indicator; to be a correct clue it would have to be "Hat could be be dry ", which is ungrammatical. A variation might read Hat turns out to be dry , but this also fails because the word "to", which is necessary to make the sentence grammatical, follows the indicator even though it is not part of the anagram indicated.
Torquemada's successor at The Observer was Ximenes (Derrick Somerset Macnutt), and in his influential work, Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword Puzzle, he set out more detailed guidelines for setting fair cryptic clues, now known as "Ximenean principles" and sometimes described by the phrase "square-dealing". The most important of them are tersely summed up by Ximenes' successor Azed (Jonathan Crowther):
The Ximenean principles are adhered to most strictly in the subgenre of advanced cryptics—difficult puzzles using barred grids and a large vocabulary. Easier puzzles often have more relaxed standards, permitting a wider array of clue types, and allowing a little flexibility. The popular Guardian setter Araucaria (John Galbraith Graham) was a noted non-Ximenean, celebrated for his witty, if occasionally unorthodox, clues.
Popularity
Most of the major national newspapers in the UK carry both cryptic and concise crosswords in every issue. The puzzle in The Guardian is well loved for its humour and quirkiness, and quite often includes puzzles with themes, which are extremely rare in The Times.Many Canadian newspapers, including the Ottawa Citizen, Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail, carry cryptic crosswords.
Cryptic crosswords do not commonly appear in U.S. publications, although they can be found in magazines such as Games, ''The Nation, The New Yorker, Harper's, and occasionally in the Sunday New York Times. The New York Post reprints cryptic crosswords from The Times. In April 2018, The New Yorker published the first of a new weekly series of cryptic puzzles. Other sources of cryptic crosswords in the U.S. are puzzle books, as well as UK and Canadian newspapers distributed in the U.S. Other venues include the Enigma, the magazine of the National Puzzlers' League, and formerly, The Atlantic Monthly. The latter puzzle, after a long and distinguished run, appeared solely on The Atlantics website for several years, and ended with the October 2009 issue. A similar puzzle by the same authors appeared every four weeks in The Wall Street Journal, from January 2010 to December 2023. Cryptic crosswords have become more popular in the United States in the years following the COVID-19 lockdowns with several "indie" outlets and setters.
Cryptic crosswords are very popular in Australia. Most Australian newspapers will have at least one cryptic crossword, if not two. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age'' in Melbourne publish daily cryptic crosswords, including Friday's challenging cryptic by 'DA'. "Lovatts", an Australian puzzle publisher, regularly issues cryptic crossword puzzle books.
How cryptic clues work
A cryptic clue leads to its answer only if it is read in the right way. What the clue appears to say when read normally is usually a distraction with nothing to do with the solution. The challenge is to find the way of reading the clue that leads to the solution. A typical clue consists of two parts:- The straight or definition. This is in essence the same as any non-cryptic crossword clue: a synonym for the answer. It usually exactly matches the part of speech, tense, and number of the answer, and usually appears at the start or end of a clue.
- The cryptic, subsidiary indication or wordplay. This gives the solver some instructions on how to get to the answer in another way. The wordplay parts of clues can be obscure, especially to a newcomer, but they tend to utilise standard rules and conventions which become more familiar with practice.
There are many sorts of wordplay, such as anagrams and double definitions, but they all conform to rules. The crossword setters do their best to stick to these rules when writing their clues, and solvers can use these rules and conventions to help them solve the clues. Noted cryptic setter Derrick Somerset Macnutt discusses the importance and art of fair cluemanship in his seminal book on cryptic crosswords, Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword.
Because a typical cryptic clue describes its answer in detail and often more than once, the solver can usually have a great deal of confidence in the answer once it has been determined. The clues are "self-checking." This is in contrast to non-cryptic crossword clues which often have several possible answers and force the solver to use the crossing letters to distinguish which was intended.
For instance "Type of tree " in a regular crossword could be any of "ASH", "BAY", "ELM", "FIG", "FIR" "OAK", "YEW", etc. "Type of tree has changed " in a cryptic crossword can only be "ASH".
Here is an example.
is a clue for. This breaks down as follows.
- 15D indicates the location and direction of the solution in the grid
- "Very sad" is the definition
- "unfinished story" gives
- "rising smoke" gives
- "about" means that the letters of should be put either side of, giving
- "" says that the answer is a single word of eight letters.
Compilers or setters often use slang terms and abbreviations, generally without indication, so familiarity with these is important for the solver. Abbreviations may be as simple as west = W, New York = NY, but may also be more difficult. Words that can mean more than one thing are commonly exploited; often the meaning the solver must use is completely different from the one it appears to have in the clue. Some examples are:Bloomer – often means flower.Flower – often means river.Runner – also often river Lead – could be the metal, an electric cable, or the verb.Nice – if capitalized as the first word, could either be 'amiable' or the French city. Thus Nice friend often clues the letters ami.Novel – could be a book, or a word for new, or a codeword indicating an anagram.Permit – could be a noun or a verb.
Of these examples, flower is an invented meaning, and cannot be confirmed in a standard dictionary. A similar trick is played in the old clue "A wicked thing" for, where the -ed suffix must be understood in its 'equipped with' meaning. In the case of the '-er' suffix, this trick could be played with other meanings of the suffix, but except for river →, this is rarely done.
Sometimes compiler, setter, or the name or codename of the compiler, codes for some form of the first-person pronoun.
In the Daily Telegraph back page, Monday 15 March 2017, 7 down, is "Banish spirits with zero ice upsetting imbibing times "; the answer is : it means "banish spirits", and is rearranged, including . The word "upsetting" indicates an anagram and the word "imbibing" indicates an insertion. The word "with" in this clue is a linking word joining the definition with the wordplay; it is not part of either of them.
Grids for cryptic crosswords
A typical cryptic crossword grid is generally 15×15, with half-turn rotational symmetry. Unlike typical American crosswords, in which every square is almost always checked, only about half of the squares in a cryptic crossword are checked.In most daily newspaper cryptic crosswords, grid designs are restricted to a set of stock grids. In the past this was because hot metal typesetting meant that new grids were expensive.
Some papers have additional grid rules. In The Times, for example, all words have at least half the letters checked, and although words can have two unchecked squares in succession, they cannot be the first two or last two letters of a word. The grid shown here breaks one Times grid rule: the 15-letter words at 9 and 24 across each have 8 letters unchecked out of 15. The Independent allows setters to use their own grid designs.
Variety cryptic crosswords typically use a barred grid with no black squares and a slightly smaller size; 12×12 is typical. Word boundaries are denoted by thick lines called bars. In these variety puzzles, one or more clues may require modification to fit into the grid, such as dropping or adding a letter, or being anagrammed to fit other, unmodified clues; un-clued spaces may spell out a secret message appropriate for the puzzle theme once the puzzle is fully solved. The solver also may need to determine where answers fit into the grid.
A July 2006 "Puzzlecraft" section in [Games Magazine|Games magazine] on cryptic crossword construction noted that for cryptic crosswords to be readily solvable, no fewer than half the letters for every word should be checked by another word for a standard cryptic crossword, while nearly every letter should be checked for a variety cryptic crossword. In most UK advanced cryptics, at least three-quarters of the letters in each word are checked.
Regional variation
British and North American differences
There are notable differences between British and North American cryptics. American cryptics are thought of as holding to a more rigid set of construction rules than British ones. American cryptics usually require all words in a clue to be used in service of the wordplay or definition, whereas British ones allow for more extraneous or supporting words. In American cryptics, a clue is only allowed to have one subsidiary indication, but in British cryptics the occasional clue may have more than one; e.g., a triple definition clue would be considered an amusing variation in the UK but unsound in the US.Other languages
For the most part, cryptic crosswords are an English-language phenomenon, although similar puzzles are popular in a Hebrew form in Israel and in Dutch. In Poland similar crosswords are called "Hetman crosswords". 'Hetman', a senior commander, and also the name for a queen in Chess, emphasises their importance over other crosswords. In Finnish, this type of crossword puzzle is known as piilosana, while krypto refers to a crossword puzzle where the letters have been coded as numbers. The German ZEITmagazin has a weekly cryptic crossword called Um die Ecke gedacht and the SZ Magazin features das Kreuz mit den Worten.In India the Telugu publication Sakshi carries a "Tenglish" cryptic crossword; the Prajavani and Vijaya Karnataka crossword also employs cryptic wordplay. Enthusiasts have also created cryptic crosswords in Hindi. Since 1994, enigmista Ennio Peres has challenged Italians annually with Il cruciverba più difficile del mondo, which has many features in common with English-style cryptics.
In Chinese something similar is the riddle of Chinese characters, where partial characters instead of substrings are clued and combined.
Types of cryptic clues
Clues given to the solver are based on various forms of wordplay. Nearly every clue has two non-overlapping parts to it: one part that provides an unmodified but often indirect definition for the word or phrase, and a second part that includes the wordplay involved. In a few cases, the two definitions are one and the same, as often in the case of "&lit." clues. Most cryptic crosswords provide the number of letters in the answer, or in the case of phrases, a series of numbers to denote the letters in each word: "cryptic crossword" would be clued with "" following the clue. More advanced puzzles may drop this portion of the clue.Anagrams
An anagram is a rearrangement of a certain section of the clue to form the answer. This is usually indicated by a codeword which indicates change, movement, breakage or something otherwise amiss. One example:gives, which means "chaperone" and is an anagram, indicated by the word "shredded", of.
Anagram clues are characterized by the codeword placed adjacent to a word or phrase made up of the letters to be rearranged. The indicator tells the solver an anagram exists, and the fodder provides the anagram to be solved. Indicators can come either directly before or directly after the fodder.
In an American cryptic, only the words given in the clue may be anagrammed; in some older puzzles, the words to be anagrammed may be clued and then anagrammed. This kind of clue is called an indirect anagram. For example, in:
"chew" is the indicator, but "honeydew" does not directly provide the letters to be anagrammed. Instead, "honeydew" clues, which can be rearranged to form the solution – another "fruit". Indirect anagrams are not used in the vast majority of cryptic crosswords, ever since they were criticised by Ximenes in On the Art of the Crossword.
It is common for the setter to use a juxtaposition of indicator and fodder that together form a common phrase, to make the clue appear as normal as possible. For example:
uses "dancing" as the indicator because it combines naturally with the fodder, disguising the anagram. The solution is .
Charade
In a charade or Ikea clue, the answer is formed by joining individually clued words to make a larger word.For example:
The answer is, formed by for "outlaw" and for "leader". The definition is "managing money". With this example, the words appear in the same order in the clue as they do in the answer, and no special words are needed to indicate this. However, the order of the parts is sometimes indicated with words such as against, after, on, with or above.
Additions
Additions, container and insertion clues put one set of letters next to or inside another. So:gives, by placing outside of .
A similar example:
The answer is, formed by placing inside the word .
Other container or insertion indicators are inside, over, around, about, clutching, enters, and the like.
Deletions
Deletion is a wordplay mechanism which removes some letters of a word to create a shorter word. Deletions consist of beheadments, curtailments, and internal deletions. In beheadments, a word loses its first letter. In curtailments, it loses its last letter, and internal deletions remove an inner letter, such as the middle one.An example of a beheadment:
The answer would be, another word for "sailor", which is star without the first letter.
A similar example, but with a specification as to the letter being removed:
The answer is, which means "bird" and is craven, or "cowardly", without the first letter.
Other indicators of beheadment include don't start, topless, and after the first.
An example of curtailment:
The answer is . If you ignore the punctuation, a "read" is a book, and book without its final letter is the solution.
Other indicators of curtailment include nearly and unfinished.
An example of internal deletion:
The answer is, which means "challenging", and is darling without its middle letter, or "heartlessly".
Double definition
A clue may, rather than having a definition part and a wordplay part, have two definition parts. Thus:would have the answer, because blind can mean both "not seeing" and "window covering". Note that since these definitions come from the same root word, an American magazine might not allow this clue. American double definitions tend to require both parts to come from different roots, as in this clue:
This takes advantage of the two very different meanings of, the one with the long o sound meaning 'someone from Poland', and the one with the short o sound meaning 'make shiny'.
These clues tend to be short; in particular, two-word clues are almost always double-definition clues.
In the UK, multiple definitions are occasionally used; e.g.:
is a quintuple definition of, "swallow", "feathers", "fell", but in the US this would be considered unsound.
Some British newspapers have an affection for quirky clues of this kind where the two definitions are similar:
Note that these clues do not have clear indicator words.
Hidden words
In hidden words, embedded words or telescopic clues, the solution itself is written within the clue – either as part of a longer word or across more than one word. For example:gives, which means "damaged" and appears across "Found ermine deer".
Possible indicators of a hidden clue include in part, partially, in, within, hides, conceals, some, and held by.
Another example:
gives, which is the first part of, or "introduction to", the word "do-gooder", and means "canine".
The opposite of a hidden word clue, where letters missing from a sentence have to be found, is known as a Printer's Devilry, and appears in some advanced cryptics.
There are several common variations on hidden word clues:
Initial or final letters (often called ''acrostic'' clues)
The first or last letters of part of the clue are put together to give the answer.An example of an initialism:
The answer would be, which is a type of "primate". "Initially" signals that you must take the first letters of "amiable person eats".
Another example would be:
The answer would be [Annie (musical)|], the name of a famous "orphan in musical theatre". This is obtained from the first letters of "actor needing new identity emulates".
Words that indicate initialisms also include firstly, primarily and to start.
It is possible to have initialisms just for certain parts of the clue. It is also possible to employ the same technique to the end of words. For example:
The answer would be, which used to be a kingdom in Africa. Here, we take the first letters of only the words "Head Office" and we take the "end of" the word "day". The letters of the word, meaning "lady", are then made to go around the letters to form.
That the solver should use the last letters may also be indicated by such words as ends, tails, last etc. For instance:
Would be based on the letters at the ends of "rich aqua, yellow, black".
Odd or even letters
Either the odd or even letters of words in the clue give the answer. An example is:The answer would be, which is "someone wanting women to vote". The word "odd" indicates that we must take only the odd-indexed letters of the rest of the clue, i.e. every other letter beginning with the first.
Homophones and homographs
Homophones are words that have different meanings, but the same pronunciation, such as night and knight. Homographs are words that have different meanings, but the same spelling, such as lead and lead.Homophone and homograph clues always have an indicator word or phrase to identify them as needing to be spoken or heard. Examples indicators include reportedly, they say, utterly, vocal, to the audience, auditioned, by the sound of it, is heard, in conversation and on the radio. Broadcast is a particularly devious indicator as it could indicate either a homophone or an anagram.
An example of a homophone clue is
which is a clue for, which means "shave" and is a homophone of pair, or "twins". The homophone is indicated by "we hear".
If the two homophones are the same length, the clue should be phrased in such a way that only one of them can be the answer. This is usually done by having the indicator adjacent to the word that is not the definition; therefore, in the previous example, "we hear" was adjacent to "twins" and the answer must therefore be rather than. The indicator could come between the homophones if they were of different lengths and the enumeration was given, such as in the case of right and rite.
Letter banks
The letter bank form of cluing consists of a shorter word containing no repeated letters, and a longer word or phrase built by using each of these letters at least once but repeating them as often as necessary. This type of clue has been described by American constructors Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto, who write the weekly puzzle for The Nation. The shorter word is typically at least three or four letters in length, while the target word or phrase is at least three letters longer than the bank word. For example, the four letters in the word can be used as a bank to form the word. Typically, the clue contains indicator words such as "use," "take," or "implement" to signal that a letter bank is being employed.A more complicated example of a letter bank is:
In this case, "taking and retaking ingredients" signals that the letters of both and form a letter bank. Those letters yield a "composer", and the solution,.
Kosman and Picciotto consider this to be a newer and more complicated form of cluing that offers another way, besides the anagram, of mixing and recombining letters.
Reversals
A word that gets turned around to make another is a reversal. For example:The answer is. is reversed to yield the solution.
Other indicator words include receding, in the mirror, going the wrong way, returns, reverses ''to the left or left, and rising, overturned or mounted or comes up''.
Cryptic definition
Here the clue appears to say one thing, but with a slight shift of viewpoint it says another. For example:gives, a flow-er of London. Here, the surface reading suggests a blossom, which disguises the fact that the name of a river is required. Notice the question mark: this is often used by compilers to indicate this sort of clue is one where you need to interpret the words in a different fashion. The way that a clue reads as an ordinary sentence is called its surface reading and is often used to disguise the need for a different interpretation of the clue's component words.
This type of clue is common in British and Canadian cryptics but is generally unused in American cryptics; in American-style crosswords,. It's almost certainly the oldest kind of cryptic clue: cryptic definitions appeared in the UK newspaper puzzles in the late 1920s and early 1930s that mixed cryptic and plain definition clues and evolved into fully cryptic crosswords.
Spoonerism
A relatively uncommon clue type, a Spoonerism is a play on words where corresponding consonant clusters are switched between two words in a phrase and the switch forms another pair of proper sounding words. For example: "butterfly" = "flutter by".Both the solution word or phrase and its corresponding Spoonerism are clued for, and the clue type is almost always indicated by reference to William Archibald Spooner himself – with some regions/publications insisting his religious title "Rev." or "Reverend" be included. In contrast to all other clue types, this makes them almost impossible to disguise. But that does not necessarily make them easy.
An example of a Spoonerism clue is:
The answer is . The Spoonerism is bitter lug, i.e. "angry" and "bear".
The vast majority of Spoonerism clues swap the first consonants of words or syllables, but Spoonerisms are not strictly restricted to that form and some setters will take advantage of this. John Henderson once clued for using the Spoonerism, which did not sit well with many solvers.
Palindrome
A clue in which the only hint to the letters in the solution is that it is a palindrome, for example:where the answer is or:
where the answer is.
Reverse anagrams
A reverse anagram or revenge clue is one which gives an anagrammed word in its text, and the solver has to determine the anagrammed word and indicator that make the solution matching the definition. Such clues may or may not use an indicator.An example from The Guardian:
The phrase "way to make" indicates that the solver should look for a word and anagram indicator that could rearrange to the words ; the solution, meaning "innovative," is.
Revenge clues are not limited to anagrams; for instance, "Quickly grab containers for the setter? " indicates a revenge reversal of, or .
&lit.
An &lit., literal or all-in-one clue is one where the entire clue simultaneously provides both the definition and the wordplay. &lit. stands for "and literally so", and originates from Derrick Somerset Macnutt, who defined it as meaning: "This clue both indicates the letters or parts of the required word, in one of the ways already explained in this book, and can also be read, in toto, literally, as an indication of the meaning of the whole word, whether as a straight or as a veiled definition." In some publications, particularly in the United States, &lit clues are indicated by an exclamation mark at the end of the clue.For example:
The answer is. The Norse god Odin is hidden in "God incarnate", as clued by "essentially", but the definition of Odin is also the whole clue, as Odin is essentially a God incarnate.
Another example:
would give the answer. In the cryptic sense, "spoil" indicates an anagram of. Simultaneously, the whole clue is – with a certain amount of licence allowed to crossword setters – a definition.
Another example:
gives the answer. A goose is an example of something that finds its origin in an egg, so the whole clue gives a definition. The clue can also be broken down cryptically: "E.g." loses its full stops to give, followed by the first letter of the word "goose",.
Semi-&lit.
A semi-&lit. clue is a variant of the &lit. where the entire clue still provides the definition, but the wordplay is only given by part of the clue.For example:
gives. The whole clue provides a definition of the answer, but only the first part of the clue is wordplay.
Another example:
gives. Only the first part of the clue provides wordplay, but the whole clue can be interpreted as a definition of the answer.
The term clue-as-definition can be used as an inclusive descriptor covering both &lit. and semi-&lit. clues.
Other miscellaneous types
Ximenes identifies various other types of clue in On The Art Of The Crossword in chapter VII, 'Improvised Clues', including:Heads and tails, involving words which have lost their first or last letter, similar to deletions; e.g. "Hard workers have a limit: one exam unfinished ", solution: .Peculiarities of speech, involving words as pronounced by someone with a distinct accent or even illness/speech pathology ; e.g. "Arry's pronunciation of dame?", solution:.Words treated as parts of other words; e.g. "A lifter causes swearing ", solution:, which would become affidavit if four letters were added to the start.Foreign languages, involving non-English words as solutions; e.g. "English writer, but understood by all Frenchmen ", solution:.Literary references, involving references to books; e.g. "Procedures followed by Romans ", solution:.Outsides, the converse of a hidden word clue; e.g. "Cavalrymen disheartened in Normandy ", solution:.Initial or final letter clues are also mentioned in this chapter, to be used "When the setter is in real desperation".
Clueing techniques
Combination clues
"Combination clues" employ more than one method of wordplay; this is particularly common for longer grid entries. For example:The answer is. "Baron" is reversed to yield, and put inside to give the solution.
In this example, the clue uses a combination of Reversal and Hidden clue types:
The answer to this clue is. "To turn" indicates a reversal, and "part of" suggests a piece of "Internet torrid"; the solution means "cruel".
Misleading clues
To make clues more difficult, cryptic constructors will frequently use traditional indicator words in a misleading manner.- A cryptic crossword on the back page of the Daily Telegraph on 14 March 2012 included the answer, whose clue was "Close study of broken nails, say " Daily Telegraph back page, 8 November 2012: "Drunk compiler's admitted boob " is parsed as "means 'drunk', contains, has 5 letters", which yields.
- In a crossword by Araucaria, "Araucaria is" coded for as part of an answer.
Clues valid only on particular days or in particular areas
- A cryptic crossword in the Sunday Telegraph on Easter Sunday 2014 had an anagram clue whose answer was, and its definition part was "today".Daily Telegraph on 8 April 2019, page 30: 5 down: "Parade one month ago ": its answer was ; that clue would be valid only in April each year.
- In a cryptic crossword in the British newspaper Daily Telegraph, the clue "Irritating proverb we're told depends on a homophony which only happens in non-rhotic pronunciation such as in British English.
Bits and pieces
Abbreviations are popular with crossword compilers for cluing individual letters or short sections of the answer. Consider this clue:There are two abbreviations used here. "About" is abbreviated, and "little Desmond" indicates that the diminutive of Desmond is required. The is "to come between" and, giving, which means "discourse".
Compilers use many of these crossword abbreviations.
Another type of abbreviation in clues might be words that refer to letters. For example, 'you' refers to the letter U, 'why' refers to the letter Y, etc. A clue for instance:
The answer is. Three abbreviations are used here. "For example" clues the common abbreviation . "Why" clues the letter. The phrase "didn't you put" clues the letters . Adding these together gets "the country".
There are many ways in which constructors can clue a part of a clue. In this clue:
The word "spectacles" clues because these letters look like a pair of spectacles "from the top". The answer is thus, which is an "exclamation of surprise" with coming from circa, clued by "about".
Often, Roman numerals are used to break down words into their component letter groups. E.g. In this clue:
The answer is, and the direct meaning is conveyed by the words "is pivotal". The first is followed by, which is 11 in Roman numerals. "First supporter" refers to the letter, which is the first letter of the word "supporter".
Clueing technique and difficulty
Cryptic clue styles across newspapers are ostensibly similar, but there are technical differences which result in the work of setters being regarded as either Ximenean or Libertarian.Ximenean rules are very precise in terms of grammar and syntax, especially as regards the indicators used for various methods of wordplay. Libertarian setters may use devices which "more or less" get the message across. For example, when treating the answer the setter may decide to split the word into and and, after finding suitable ways to define the answer and, now looks to give the solver a clue to the letter. Ximenean rules would not allow something like "reach first" to indicate that is the first letter of "reach" because, grammatically, that is not what "reach first" implies. Instead, a phrase along the lines of "first to reach" would be needed as this conforms to rules of grammar. Many Libertarian crossword editors would, however, accept "reach first" as it would be considered to reasonably get the idea across. For instance, a clue following Ximenean rules for may look as such:
While a clue following Libertarian rules may look as follows:
The Guardian is perhaps the most Libertarian of cryptic crosswords, while The Times is mostly Ximenean. The others tend to be somewhere in between; the Financial Times and Independent tend towards Ximenean, the Daily Telegraph also – although its Toughie crossword can take a very Libertarian approach depending on the setter. None of the major daily cryptics in the UK is "strictly Ximenean"; all allow clues which are just cryptic definitions, and strict Ximenean rules exclude such clues. There are other differences like nounal anagram indicators and in current Times crosswords, unindicated definition by example: "bay" in the clue indicating in the answer, without a qualification like "bay, perhaps".
In terms of difficulty, Libertarian clues can seem impenetrable to inexperienced solvers. However, more significant is the setter him/herself. Crosswords in the Times and Daily Telegraph are published anonymously, so the crossword editor ensures that clues adhere to a consistent house style. Inevitably each setter has an individual approach to clue-writing, but the way in which wordplay devices are used and indicated is kept within a defined set of rules.
In the Guardian, Independent, Financial Times and Telegraph Toughie series the setters' pseudonyms are published, so solvers become familiar with the styles of individual setters rather than house rules. Thus the level of difficulty is associated with the setter rather than the newspaper, though puzzles by individual setters can actually vary in difficulty considerably.
It is effectively impossible, then, to describe one newspaper's crosswords as the toughest or easiest. For newcomers to cryptic puzzles the Daily Telegraph is often regarded as an ideal starting point, but this is contentious. Since all of the newspapers have different styles, concentrating on one of them is likely to lead to proficiency in only one style of clue-writing; moving to a different series, after perhaps years spent with just one, can leave the solver feeling as if they have gone back to square one. The better technique is to simply attempt as many different crosswords as possible, perhaps to find a "comfort zone" but, more importantly, to experience the widest possible range of Ximenean/Libertarian styles.
Variety Cryptics
"Themed" or "variety" cryptics have developed a small but enthusiastic following in Britain, the United States, and elsewhere. Variety cryptics are arguably among the most difficult of all crossword puzzles, both to compile and to solve, since they often involve alterations to the answers before entry into the grid, meaning that there is no assurance that the cross clues will match up unless properly altered.As an example, a puzzle entitled "Trash Talk" by Bob Stigger in the June 2019 issue of the U.S. publication Games World of Puzzles included the following instruction:
In this variety cryptic crossword, 18 clue answers are garbage, to be treated according to the mantra "13-Across 6-Across and 40-across." Specifically, six answers are too long for the grid; delete one letter. Six others are too short, double one letter. And six more don't match the crossing letters; anagram them.
Pangrams
A crossword that includes all the letters of the alphabet within the clue answers is known as a pangram. Crosswords have been set with clue answers that contain all the letters of the alphabet twice, thrice, four times over, and even five times. This last, a pentapangram, was compiled by Maize and published in the i on January 1, 2018.Cryptic crosswords in specific publications
United Kingdom
In Britain it is traditional—dating from the cryptic crossword pioneer Edward (Bill) Powys Mathers, who called himself "Torquemada" after the Spanish Inquisitor—for compilers to use evocative pseudonyms. "Crispa", named from the Latin for "curly-headed", who set crosswords for the Guardian from 1954 until her retirement in 2004, legally changed her surname to "Crisp" after divorcing in the 1970s. Some pseudonyms have obvious connotations: for example, Torquemada as already described, or "Mephisto" with fairly obvious devilish overtones. Others are chosen for logical but less obvious reasons, though "Dinmutz" was produced by random selection of Scrabble tiles.;The Daily Telegraph/Sunday Telegraph
;The Guardian
;The Independent
;i
;The National
;The Observer
;Private Eye
;The Radio Times
;Significance
;The Spectator
;The Sunday Times
;The Times
;Viz magazine
Elsewhere
;The Age;The Atlantic
;The Browser
;Games World of Puzzles
;The Globe and Mail
The Geraldine News
;Harper's
;The Hindu
;Irish Times
;The Listener
;Lovatts Crosswords
;The Nation
;The National Post
;New York Magazine
;New Yorker
;New York Times
;The New Zealand Herald
;Ottawa Citizen
;Sydney Daily Telegraph
;Sydney Morning Herald and The Age
;The Toronto Star
;''The Wall Street Journal''
Setters on more than one British national paper
Several setters appear in more than one paper. Some of these, with pseudonyms shown, are:| Guardian | Times | Independent | Financial Times | Daily/Sunday Telegraph | Telegraph Toughie | Private Eye | Observer | |
| Paul Bringloe | x | Tees | Neo | |||||
| Michael Curl | Orlando | x | Cincinnus | |||||
| John Dawson | Chifonie | Armonie | ||||||
| John Galbraith Graham | Araucaria | Cinephile | ||||||
| Brian Greer | Brendan | x | Virgilius | x | Jed | |||
| Dave Gorman | Fed | Bluth | Django | |||||
| John Halpern | Paul | x | Punk | Mudd | Dada | |||
| Sarah Hayes | Arachne | x | Anarche | Rosa Klebb | ||||
| John Henderson | Enigmatist | x | Nimrod | Io | Elgar | |||
| Paul Henderson | Phi | Kcit | ||||||
| Margaret Irvine | Nutmeg | x | ||||||
| Eddie James | Brummie | Cyclops | ||||||
| Mark Kelmanson | Monk | Monk | ||||||
| Don Manley | Pasquale | x | Quixote | Bradman | x | Giovanni | ||
| Philip Marlow | Hypnos | Sleuth | x | Shamus | ||||
| Dean Mayer | x | Anax | Loroso | Elkamere | ||||
| Roger Phillips | x | Nestor | Notabilis | |||||
| Richard Rogan | x | Bannsider | ||||||
| Allan Scott | x | Falcon | Campbell | Everyman | ||||
| Roger Squires | Rufus | Dante | x | |||||
| Neil Walker | Tramp | Jambazi | ||||||
| Mike Warburton | Scorpion | Aardvark | Osmosis | |||||
| John Young | Shed | Dogberry |
x – Denotes a compiler operating without a pseudonym in this publication.
In addition, Roger Squires compiles for the Glasgow Herald and the Yorkshire Post.
Roger Squires and Ruth Crisp set at various times in their careers for all 5 of the broadsheets.
Cryptic crossword research
Research into cryptic crossword solving has been comparatively sparse. Several discrete areas have been explored: the cognitive or linguistic challenges posed by cryptic clues; the mechanisms by which the "Aha!" moment is triggered by solving cryptic crossword clues; the use of cryptic crosswords to preserve cognitive flexibility in aging populations; and expertise studies into the drivers of high performance and ability in solving cryptics.Recent expertise studies by Friedlander and Fine, based on a large-scale survey of 805 solvers of all ability, suggest that cryptic crossword solvers are generally highly academically able adults whose education and occupations lie predominantly in the area of scientific, mathematical or IT-related fields. This STEM connection increases significantly with level of expertise, particularly for mathematics and IT. The authors suggest that cryptic crossword skill is bound up with code-cracking and problem-solving skills of a logical and quasi-algebraic nature.
Friedlander and Fine also note that solvers are motivated predominantly by "Aha!" moments, and intrinsic rewards such as mental challenge. Solvers voluntarily choose to engage with intellectually and culturally stimulating activities like music, theatre, reading, and the arts in their leisure time, and pursue active musical participation such as singing or playing an instrument at noticeably higher levels than the UK national average. Solving cryptic crossword clues can lead to a succession of 'Aha!' or 'Penny-Dropping' Moments which is highly rewarding; Friedlander and Fine suggest that research could take advantage of the range of cryptic crossword devices to explore the mechanics of insight in more depth. Looking at expert cryptic crossword solvers – who speedily overcome the clue misdirection – and comparing them with typical, everyday solvers of equal experience may provide a better understanding of the kind of person who can overcome a solving 'hitch' more easily, and how they go about it.
Cryptic crosswords in fiction
Cryptic crosswords often appear in British literature, and are particularly popular in murder mysteries, where they are part of the puzzle. The character Inspector Morse created by Colin Dexter is fond of solving cryptic crosswords, and the crosswords often become part of the mystery. Colin Dexter himself set crosswords for The Oxford Times for many years and was a national crossword champion. In the short story "The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager's Will", by Dorothy L Sayers, Lord Peter Wimsey solves a crossword in order to solve the mystery, while the solution to Agatha Christie's Curtain hinges on an Othello themed crossword. Ruth Rendell has used the device in her novel One Across, Two Down. Among non-crime writers, crosswords often feature in the works of P. G. Wodehouse, and are an important part of the short story "The Truth About George". Alan Plater's 1994 novel Oliver's Travels centres round crossword solving and the hunt for a missing compiler.Crosswords feature prominently in the 1945 British romantic drama film Brief Encounter, scripted by playwright Noël Coward, which is number two in the British Film Institute's Top 100 British films. The plot of "The Riddle of the Sphinx", a 2017 episode of Inside No. 9, revolves around the clues and answers to a particular crossword puzzle, which had appeared on the day of the original broadcast in The Guardian.