Cryptic Crossword - General Information

Cryptic crosswords are probably one of the hardest crosswords to understand. However once the rules are learnt you can be pretty sure what the solution is (compared to a "Quick Clue" crossword). The reason being is that, usually there are two meanings in the clue given for the solution.

Here are several rules to look out for when doing a cryptic crossword, this can hopefully help and improve your skills in completing one of these crosswords.

 

Anagrams

Probably one of the easier clues to solve. Look out for words such as "upset" or "rebuilt". Anything resembling mixing up ("destroy" is another example) usually indicates in the clue that it is a anagram. For example:

Confused Storm troops at Formula One Grand Prix (11)

Here "confused" indicates mixing up the letters, in this case stormtroops is the word we need to jumble up to make another word which is similar to Formula One Grand Prix.

In this case it turns out to be "MOTORSPORTS" which is the solution.

Two Meanings

They are usually short clues where two seperate parts of the clue imply the same meaning. For example :

Carry on with the summary (6)

Where Carry on = RESUME
And Summary = RESUME

Word Inside Other Words

Terms such as "in", "some" or "inside" usually indicate that there is a hidden word inside the clue. An example of this is the following :

Become sick in the hilly section (3)

Where the solution is ILL

Homophones (Sounds Like)

If there are words which sounds similar to another word then this is a homophone. For example "seize" and "seas" sound the same but spelt different. This is another sort of cryptic clue one might use. You should be looking out for terms such as "we hear" or "sounds like". Here is an example of a clue using homophones.

Sounds like the wood worker put carp into her (9)

Another name for a wood worker is a carpenter, which sounds similar to "carp into her", hence the solution is CARPENTER

Numbers (Roman Numerals or references)

If you notice actual numbers being used in the clue, they can mean either one of two things either its a roman character so for example

1 = I, 5 = V, 10 = X, 50 = L, 100 = C, 500 = D or 1000 = M

They could also imply "more than" or "greater than" in the clue implying that "more than 5" actually means 6 hence VI.

Numbers could also indicate that look at the answer to a certain clue and see whether it could be an anagram.

Other Special Rules

Other things to look out for are "keywords" with mean certain things. Here are a few I have found out myself

love or ring indicates the letter "O"
queen indicates the letters "ER"
father indicates the letters "PA"

I hope the advice given here will be helpful towards completing a cryptic crossword yourself!