How to solve cryptic crosswords
Every cryptic clue is two clues in one: a plain definition, and some wordplay that builds the same answer another way. Once you can separate the two, the rest is practice.
1. Split the clue in two
The definition is at the very start or the very end, never in the middle. Take Listen out for quiet (6). “Quiet” is the definition. “Listen out” is the wordplay: “out” tells you to rearrange LISTEN, giving SILENT. “For” just joins the two halves.
Ignore the surface meaning. Setters write clues that read like ordinary sentences, and that sentence is usually misleading. Look at each word for what it could do.
2. Look for indicators
Indicators are instruction words. They tell you which kind of wordplay is in use and usually sit next to the letters they act on.
| Type | What happens | Typical indicators |
|---|---|---|
| Anagram | Letters are rearranged | confused, broken, wild, out, novel, perhaps |
| Hidden word | The answer is spelled inside the clue | in, some, part of, hides, holding |
| Reversal | Letters are read backwards | back, returned, retiring, up (in down clues) |
| Container / insertion | One part goes inside another | holding, about, eating / in, inside, entering |
| Homophone | The answer sounds like something | we hear, reportedly, on the radio |
| Deletion | A letter is removed | headless, endless, almost, heartless |
| Letter selection | First, last or alternate letters are taken | initially, finally, oddly, regularly |
3. Learn the main clue types
- Anagram: Listen out for quiet (6)
- “Out” shows that LISTEN is rearranged, giving SILENT, which means “quiet”.
- Hidden word: Animal found in magic attack (3)
- magiC ATtack. “Found in” points to a hidden word, giving CAT.
- Reversal: Celebrity rats returned (4)
- RATS read backwards is STAR, a celebrity.
- Container: Bed holding a drop (4)
- BED goes around A to give B(A)ED, which is BEAD, a drop.
- Charade: Sailor with stain to refrain (7)
- “Sailor” is AB. AB plus STAIN makes ABSTAIN, meaning to refrain.
- First letters: Initially, take extra apples: a drink (3)
- The first letters of “take extra apples” spell TEA.
- Homophone: Fruit pair, we hear (4)
- PEAR sounds like “pair”.
- Double definition: Fast train (7)
- EXPRESS means both “fast” and a kind of train.
4. Know your abbreviations
Setters lean on a shared vocabulary of short substitutions: “sailor” is AB or TAR, “about” is C or RE, “quiet” is P or SH, “love” is O. The abbreviations list has the common ones.
5. Work both ends
- Start with the clues that have obvious indicators. Anagrams and hidden words are the easiest way in.
- Count letters. Words next to an anagram indicator with exactly the right number of letters are almost certainly the fodder.
- Crossing letters are clues too. Put what you know into the pattern search.
- If an answer fits the definition but you can't explain the wordplay, pencil it in and come back.
- Stuck? The cryptic helper gives one hint at a time, so you only see as much as you need.
All indicator types
Anagram · Hidden word · Reversal · Container · Insertion · Homophone · Remove first letter · Remove last letter · Remove outer letters · Remove middle letter · Outer letters · Central letters · First letters · Last letters · Alternate letters · Spoonerism · Charade (building blocks) · Link word