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Toughie No. 14 — cryptic crossword

A toughie puzzle: 42 clues on a 15×15 grid. Solve it online — check your answers as you go, ask for a hint, and read how each clue works once it is solved.

Across

  1. They assume the shape of whatever contains them (7)
  2. Domain redrawn, caught wandering (7)
  3. Part of Chelsea side in reserve (5)
  4. Writer's borough where nobody lives (5,4)
  5. Musical exercise to climb (5)
  6. Only spirit, reportedly (4)
  7. Some of the ironwork belonging to them (5)
  8. Awful rant, roar from the teller of tales (8)
  9. Barge in below, unusually (5)
  10. Secure accommodation — a bolt-hole for the wanted man (4,5)
  11. Hold out for the worker who is unyielding (9)
  12. Microphone taking in America gives a pleasant sound (5)
  13. Puts paid to revolutionary held by Scots (8)
  14. Craving buried in a laugh from the scavenger (5)
  15. Name changed for the lion's crowning glory (4)
  16. Wriggling fleas are not real (5)
  17. Losing one somehow, relaxing (9)
  18. Scrap of land wrapped in this letter (5)
  19. Right hard myths, retold as beats (7)
  20. Time with chemical compounds for the examiners (7)

Down

  1. A long way from an easy twelve months (5,4)
  2. Cited endlessly, giving the price (5)
  3. Bury winter, having lost its head (5)
  4. The programme's number displayed (5)
  5. French refusal to gain — not in it for the money (9)
  6. Italian city of marble: service for one (5)
  7. Coats tailored for the royal meeting (5)
  8. Guide also adapted for the talks (9)
  9. Not working, one on the river! (5)
  10. Character heard at sea (3)
  11. Essential friend, when you get down to it (9)
  12. Old saw brought back, existed (3)
  13. Bombard trapped in the waters — she sells them by the seashore (9)
  14. Edging discovered in the mending (3)
  15. Former partner alters trades (9)
  16. Second crush becomes a runaway success (5)
  17. Beginning to break stone (5)
  18. Grinders concealed by a polite ethos (5)
  19. Small tipster is thickset (5)
  20. Scoundrels — they bring up the rear (5)
  21. Cream picked out of hotel items (5)
  22. What tops forests in Russia! (3)

More: Toughie cryptic crosswords.

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