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Bust your brain in 10 words or fewer: getting hooked on cryptic crosswords

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Cryptic crosswords are a type of crossword popular in Britain and other commonwealth countries. To the uninitiated, the clues look impenetrable. Once you get into them, they're amusing and addictive. In this post, I'll explain how they work and, hopefully, what the appeal is. An example clue (found in Don Manley's Crossword Manual) to get started, which we'll discuss shortly:

Bury in the cold season, no hint of warmth (5)

I first learned to do cryptics when I was a teenager on work experience at a regional newspaper. They didn't have much for me to do on some days, so I learned to solve the crossword. I had a few (bad) attempts at creating my own crosswords during lockdown, but properly got into setting crosswords in 2022.

Pretty much every newspaper in the country has a daily cryptic puzzle, most famously The Times. Some papers have anonymous setters and attempt to have a consistent style across the puzzles, others use pseudonyms and solvers can get to know the individual styles. There are also online communities of solvers, setters, streamers, and bloggers.

So, how do they work?

Two layers of meaning

A cryptic clue has two layers of meaning: the surface reading, which is how the clue reads as an ordinary English sentence, and the cryptic reading, which is where the puzzle lies. The surface reading is mainly aesthetic, but it is important. A clue with a bad surface reading is a bad clue — part of enjoying cryptics is appreciating the craftsmanship of a clue that makes sense on both the surface and cryptic reading.

The cryptic reading is the puzzle, a hidden meaning. But thankfully, it's not the wild west. There are rules for how the cryptic readings work, which you can learn. Almost all clues have two parts:

• A definition for the solution.
• Wordplay that when read correctly will lead to the same solution.

The definition is always at the beginning or the end. The two parts may have an appropriate linking word or punctuation between them, or may be joined "invisibly". The challenge of the clue is therefore to separate the two parts, and find the solution that fits the definition and the wordplay. In this sense, cryptic clues are self-checking. There are roughly 10 basic devices (depending on exactly how you count them) that are considered allowable in wordplay, but they can often be combined into more complex clues.

A well-formed cryptic clue has no extraneous words. Every word has exactly one role in both the surface and cryptic reading.

Solving the clue

Let's go back to the original example above.

The definition must be at the beginning or end, so it could be "Bury" or "warmth". In this case it is "bury".

Now, "in" is just the linking word i.e. "a word meaning bury may be found in the following wordplay". The wordplay is therefore

the cold season, no hint of warmth

And now the parse:

the cold season = WINTER
hint of warmth = W (literally the first letter of warmth)
So "WINTER, no W" is INTER = bury

Note the setter has placed the definition at the start, enabling them to use it ambiguously as "bury" or the village of "Bury" — good surfaces can also be used to aid the cryptic reading by encouraging ambiguous or misleading readings of words. They could have written

The cold season, no hint of warmth for bury

But now that doesn't make sense on the surface, and it obvious which sense of "Bury" is the definition (as there is now no capital letter).

This clue used two devices: letter selection (to select the W from warmth) and letter deletion.

Here is another clue of my own that uses letter selection. Can you solve it?

Goes offstage and heads for toilet, shaking, after seconds of weak, excruciating dialogue (5)

And the solution:

A sampling of the most common devices

The following examples are from my own puzzles.

Anagrams

Anagrams are one of the most straightforward devices. The letters are jumbled up in the clue, and there is an indicator word that tells you that it is an anagram. Indicator words can be anything hinting at movement, confusion, madness, violence, organisation, drunkenness, wrongness, ... anything that might hint that things are not in the correct order! Most puzzles will have at least a couple of anagrams, and since the indicators are fairly easy to spot, these are often a good way in to the puzzle. Let's see an example:

Tool that can make a hole in a lung violently (7)

Here, "violently" indicates an anagram — and it helps to notice "in a lung" has 7 letters. Hence we need a "tool that can make a hole" that's an anagram of "in a lung". It is of course NAILGUN. Note that in this one, there is no linking word between the definition and the wordplay.

Swimmers amaze troops at sea (11)

A seasoned solver would recognise that "at sea" can mean confused or disorganised, and hence is an anagram indicator. Rearranging "amaze troops" gives SPERMATOZOA — swimmers! (hey, definitions can be playful as long as they're accurate and fair).

Hidden word

Hidden words are generally the easiest clues. As such, most puzzles only have one, but it can make for a way into a tricky puzzle. In this clue type, the answer is literally hidden inside the clue — and there will be an indicator suggesting that it is hidden there.

Some voodoo medicine is destined to fail (6)

Here, "some" indicates we need to take a section of the following phrase, and clearly DOOMED is hidden in "voodoo medicine" and means destined to failed. "is" is just a link word.

Insertion

In an insertion clue, we must insert one word inside another to get the answer. However, we are rarely told which words precisely — usually we are given synonyms.

Anger in commerical broadcast (5)

We have to realise that "anger" could be IRE and "commercial" could be AD. Inserting one into the other gives AIRED, which means broadcast. Insertion will always be indicated — here it is the word "in", but it could be something like "eaten by" or "surrounded by".

Insertion is also a building block to more complex clues. We might not just have to insert a synonym, but potentially insert the solution to an anagram or letter selection clue. For example:

Contemplating being tied in knots during sex (10)

The definition here is "contemplating". "Being" is the link word. "in knots" is an anagram indicator, "during" is an insertion indicator (i.e. one word during another word). So we need to insert an anagram of "tied" into a synonym of sex. Inserting EDIT into MATING gives MEDITATING.

Insertions are very common and appear in all puzzles multiple times. They are also called "sandwich" clues or "containment" clues.

Charade

Charade is another extremely common device that will appear multiple times in any puzzle, and is a building block for more complex clues. Charade stands out amongst most wordplay devices because usually there is no indicator in the clue that you are dealing with a charade! So in the absence of an obvious indicator, this is one possible way to proceed.

A charade is just a sequence of clues for sub-words that when joined give another word.

Spymaster requests disguises (5)

The definition in this clue is "disguises". M is a spymaster (from 007 films), and requests are ASKS. Putting them together gets MASKS.

Just as in the case of insertion clues, the sub-clues don't need to be definitions. More complex clues can be built by charading together other clue types.

Michigan prophet decapitated in act of God (7)

The clue here is grouped up as

(Michigan) (prophet decapitated) in act of God

Well, in zip codes Michigan is MI. A prophet could be an ORACLE, so a "prophet decapitated" could be RACLE (it has lost its head... this is another example of letter deletion device). The solution is MIRACLE.

Exceptions to the definition-wordplay format

There are three exceptions to the format

Multiple definitions

Instead of a definition and wordplay, the clue may be simply composed of multiple definitions for the same word. One way to spot these is to note that they are often short:

Maroon thread (6)

is STRAND.

Double definitions like this are very common. Stringing together more definitions into a single clue is considerably rarer.

Cryptic definition

The entire clue is just a cryptic definition. A cryptic definition is kind of like a little joke, and the solution is the punchline. They often have a question mark at the end, but not necessarily.

Mark of ownership? (9)

gives APOSTROPHE.

Sometimes a cryptic definition will be combined with wordplay, so instead of definition-wordplay there is cryptic definition-wordplay.

&lit

One of the rarest clue types, an &lit clue is one in which the entire clue is both the definition and the wordplay. The definitions are usually slightly looser to accommodate for this, but the wordplay will follow the same rules as the usual wordplay devices above. They often have a question mark or exclamation mark, but not always:

Management of acne risk? (8)

"Management" here is being used as an anagram indicator: the solution is SKINCARE.

The knowledge

One of the bigger humps to getting into cryptics is certain assumed general knowledge, which tends to be rather based on the cultural capital of white upper/middle class Brits.

This shows up especially in the use of abbreviations. Abbreviations are frequently used to clue single (or small groups of) letters for use in charades, insertions, and letter deletion clues. We saw the example of Michigan cluing MI in the clue above. All abbreviations must be in the dictionary — the setter can't just make them up.

So to that end, you better know your chess notation, US states, periodic table, Roman numerals, SI units, cricket scoring notation, abbreviations for various diplomas, as well as being willing to accept various bullshit cryptic conventions like "books" being a clue for the letters OT because it's an abbreviation for Old Testament. There's a good list of abbreviations here you might refer to while solving.

In the end, this is just stuff you learn over time. I know nothing about cricket, after all.

Where to begin

There are a handful of other devices I've not mentioned. Two are common — the sound-alike and the reversal; the others are odd-ball clues you rarely see like palindromes and spoonerisms.

The best way to learn to solve cryptics is ideally to solve them with a friend. It's surprisingly fun, as you'll both pick up on little details in the clues the other has missed.

It used to be fairly hard to recommend a good starting point for cryptics as they're all quite hard for beginners, but thankfully there is now an obvious answer:

The Guardian's weekly Quick Cryptic is the perfect starting point. Each short puzzle uses only 4 devices, explained at the start of the puzzle. By starting at the first puzzle and progressing through, you can master the devices (just increment the number at the end of the URL).

After having a go, read the explanations on the Fifteen Squared blog (often called 225 in the comments below puzzles). You'll pick up lots from reading these. Here are the solutions to the first quick cryptic.

After the Guardian Quick Cryptics, I recommend Steve Mossberg's Quiptic puzzles. These puzzles use only one device per clue, and never have link words. Even better, he provides scaffolded versions that have the definition highlighted and reveal the device explicitly. British solvers, beware — Steve's crosswords are for an American audience and hence use Americanisms freely.

From here, you could have a go at the Telegraph which tend to be fairly accessible (I'd recommend getting one of their crossword puzzle books, otherwise you'd have to buy the Telegraph), or you could try the Guardian's Quiptic. The Guardian Quiptic is often pretty good, but the difficulty is not always pitched quite right; it is often harder than the regular cryptic slot! However, you can still look up the solutions on Fifteen Squared.

There's a thriving community of setters and solvers on My Crossword. You can opt to have the definitions highlighted to help you out, if the setter has enabled it. There are also Twitch streams and YouTube channels where folks solve crosswords in collaboration with the chat (I like Cryptic Sunday — they're dead friendly and welcome requests for explanations). I also learned a lot from Cracking The Crpytic's Times solves.

Don't expect to completely finish puzzles straight away. I still regularly find I can't finish a complete puzzle. Just enjoy the ones you can get, and read the solutions to the ones you can't. Any new tricks you encounter you'll be ready for next time.