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Toughie No. 48 — cryptic crossword

A toughie puzzle: 38 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. One class up in arms (5)
  2. In Germany, speeders shaken up and pushed down (9)
  3. Drink soup, having lost love (3)
  4. Console belt: familiar territory (7,4)
  5. Mother's boy, a lodge member (5)
  6. Bad leadership — where you buy a car (10)
  7. Promontory found in Essex (4)
  8. Judge dismantled suites for an order of priests (7)
  9. Castile in ruins, but adaptable (7)
  10. Bishop churned up a lagoon in an Italian city (7)
  11. Tin star damaged in passage (7)
  12. Passion in the qualifying round (4)
  13. Creative do arranged just for show (10)
  14. Some more concrete scouting (5)
  15. Departing crack! (7,4)
  16. Belonging to us, held by Labour Party (3)
  17. Insult on the way to a lecture (9)
  18. Song of gold brought back is regal (5)

Down

  1. Interior work — theft by an employee (6,3)
  2. Papal airs disturbed the assessment (9)
  3. Going beyond old partner, ceding energy inside (9)
  4. Meads brewed for titled women (5)
  5. Expert dig in scripture, standing out (9)
  6. Consumes a bit of great stuff (4)
  7. Small sharpener that glittered (5)
  8. Five hundred regulations are rubbish (5)
  9. Rhythm and poetry, primarily! (3)
  10. Unknown broken nose in these parts (5)
  11. Second Conservative avenger, one who lives off scraps (9)
  12. Arab slate dressed as a white stone (9)
  13. Irritable about me on Monday, giving evidence (9)
  14. Chart deal negotiated at the seat of the diocese (9)
  15. Note tucked into October: a group of eight (5)
  16. Partly why Pedro is talked up (5)
  17. Hanging about in embarrassed silence (5)
  18. Put on a college fellow (3)
  19. Church set in ore, an earthy yellow (5)
  20. Grub, by the sound of it, is Italian for goodbye (4)

More: Toughie cryptic crosswords.

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