How to solve cryptic crosswords

Every cryptic clue has two halves: a definition and a piece of wordplay. Each leads to the same answer on its own, so when both agree, you know you’re right.

Three things make a clue fair: the definition sits at one end — the very start or the very end, never buried in the middle; the wordplay accounts for every letter, with no leftovers and nothing missing; and every word does a job — definition, wordplay, or a small link word.

The kinds of cryptic clue

Anagram

A word suggesting disorder, plus the letters to rearrange. The letters must be written out in the clue — never implied.

Lime cocktail measures a distance → MILE. “distance” defines it; “cocktail” says mix; LIME supplies the letters.

Charade

Pieces joined end to end.

Vehicle with animal covering the floor → CARPET. CAR + PET.

Container

One chunk goes inside another.

Trousers concealing fifty in the greenhouse → PLANTS. L, the Roman fifty, inside PANTS.

Hidden word

The answer sits in plain sight across consecutive letters.

Some cinnamon keys hide an ape → MONKEY. cinnaMON KEYs.

Reversal

Read something backwards.

Prize when the drawer is turned round → REWARD. DRAWER, reversed.

Homophone

Sounds like something else. Flagged with “we hear”, “reportedly”, “said”.

Also heard as a pair → TOO. Sounds like TWO.

Deletion

Take letters off.

Fright loses its starter, becoming concern → CARE. SCARE without its first letter.

Initials / alternate letters

Take letters from a run of clue words: the first (“initially”, “leaders”), the last (“finally”, “ends”), or every other one (“oddly”, “regularly”).

Tire, initially feeling low and gloomy → FLAG. “Tire” is the definition; “initially” says take first letters: Feeling Low And Gloomy.

Double definition

Two straight meanings side by side, with no wordplay device at all.

Harbour wine → PORT. “Harbour” is one meaning of PORT, and the fortified wine is the other.

Cryptic definition

The whole clue is one misleading definition.

Flower of London → THAMES. A thing that flows.

&lit

The entire clue works as the definition and as the wordplay at once. The hardest to write, and the most admired.

Terribly evil! → VILE. An anagram of EVIL — and the clue as a whole describes it.

Composite

Two or more devices in one clue — a word cut short, turned round or rearranged, then joined to the rest. Take it a piece at a time.

Fellow, simple but headless, is a clergyman → CHAPLAIN. “clergyman” defines it; CHAP (“fellow”) + PLAIN (“simple”) without its head, LAIN — a charade with a deletion inside it.

Then try one: Gentle cryptic crosswords are the way in, or Onesies give you one clue at a time.

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