Crosswords Articles

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-25-2022

Discover how solving crossword puzzles can benefit your senior brain by strengthening memory, mind function, and more. Next, dive into crossword-puzzle tips for seniors that can enhance your efficiency and enjoyment and hone your puzzle-solving skills.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 02-24-2022

Working crossword puzzles is great exercise for your brain — and great fun as well. To maximize your enjoyment and your mental workout, take some time to learn basic tips for solving crossword clues. Then, create the right environment so you can focus, move at your own pace, and give the crossword your best effort. And when you’re ready for a different type of challenge, consider working other types of puzzles as well. Your synapses will thank you!

Cheat Sheet / Updated 08-30-2021

People love to do puzzles of all kinds, but cryptic crosswords are often seen as a challenging form of entertainment — delight may be rare to anyone new to cryptics! This cheat sheet covers the basics of how to start on a cryptic crossword grid, and you’ll also find some handy reference lists and explanations to spotting certain clue devices.

Article / Updated 06-19-2017

Solving crossword puzzles is more satisfying if you know key tips and strategies. Attain expertise with crossword puzzles by using these techniques. You'll be able to tackle any puzzle grid comfortably and efficiently, and increase your enjoyment in the process. Make sure you’re seated comfortably in a well-lit area. It can take an hour or more to solve certain crosswords, so make sure you’re seated comfortably at a table or desk, or in your favorite chair. You don’t want your joints to start aching over a crossword puzzle! Work in pencil. It’s okay to guess and make mistakes. Remember to keep your eraser handy! Stick with puzzles that are easy on the eyes. Even the most fine-tuned eyeglass prescription can only do so much to reduce the strain of looking at a small-print puzzle for a long period of time. Working on large-print puzzles helps keep your eyes from getting strained, and reduces your chance of getting a headache! Start with the fill-in-the-blank clues. They’re often the easiest to solve, and they help get your thought processes ready for more difficult solutions. Focus on small (three- to five-letter) word entries. There just aren’t as many of these short words to choose from in the English language. As you work more puzzles, you’ll get familiar with the short words that are used in puzzles over and over, and it will become another game for you find these in the puzzles and fill them in. The more brain stimulation, the better! Check off each clue that you solve. It’ll give you a sense of accomplishment and help you remember what you’ve already done so you can focus on the clues that remain. Work on more than one puzzle at a time. If one puzzle becomes too frustrating, move away it to another, more satisfying one. You can go back to the frustrating puzzle at a later time, and with a fresher perspective. Keep the puzzle’s theme in mind. Many crossword puzzles have themes, and have titles that hint at those themes. Keeping the theme in mind will help you focus on information associated with the theme, and help you remember clues for solving the puzzle. Another memory booster! Compile a trusty set of resources. Resources can help you find answers to puzzles, and open your mind to fresh information you can use later. Don’t be ashamed to use them. The object is to have fun and stimulate your brain. Keep in mind that those resources can include friends and family members. Solving crosswords doesn’t have to be a solitary activity. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and get solutions from other people. Getting help from others makes solving crossword puzzles more fun, and can help your mind stay sharp. Write out your partial solutions if you get stuck. If you’re trying to solve a Down clue, use that pencil to write out the letters you already know in a horizontal line. Chances are, you’ll be able to better visualize words when they’re written horizontally. This will help jog your memory so you can come up with the solution. Practice, practice, practice! To build muscle and stay in shape, you have to exercise frequently. The same is true of building your puzzling muscle — your brain. Make time for crosswords several times a week if you can.

Article / Updated 04-26-2016

You don’t have to be a crossword puzzle expert to enjoy solving easy puzzles or even more challenging ones. But when you sit down to work on any crossword grid, you’ll likely enjoy yourself more if you keep these simple tips in mind: Work in pencil. By working in pencil, you give yourself permission to guess and make mistakes. And mistakes make you a better puzzler in the end. Be loyal to a puzzle editor. When you’re first starting to work crosswords, stick with puzzles you find in a single source (one book or one newspaper, for example). Doing so allows you to become familiar with what to expect from the puzzle editor (the person who compiles and styles each puzzle). This familiarity can simplify puzzles for you. Think about theme. If a puzzle has a title, it indicates the theme of that puzzle. Usually the theme relates only to some of the clues — usually those that require longer answers — not all of them. Fill in the blanks first. The fill-in-the-blank clues often are the easiest type to solve, so you can get a good start on your grid by cracking these first. Focus on small (three-to-five-letter) word entries. Puzzle constructors just don’t have as many of these short words to choose from in the English language. So, as you work more puzzles, you’ll get familiar with the short words that constructors and editors use over and over. By filling these in early on, you may break open your grid and be able to solve a few of your more difficult clues. Visit Crosswordese.com. At this site, you’ll be introduced to short, often unusual English words that puzzle constructors love. Get trivial. Because they’re usually fairly straightforward and don’t involve wordplay, trivia clues also may be fairly easy to answer. Plus, you can locate trivia answers in outside resources when you’re stuck. Eye abbreviations and acronyms. If an answer needs to be an abbreviation or acronym, the clue tells you so. If you see “Abbr.” in the clue, or if the clue itself is abbreviated or an acronym, that’s your tip. Again, these smaller clues can help you answer the more complex surrounding clues you may be stumped by. Go global. If an answer is in a foreign language, the clue informs you by specifying the language or using words from that language. Pick out plurals. When you’re stuck, look for clues written in a plural form. Using a pencil, write an S at the end of each grid entry that you know must be a plural word or phrase. Often (though not always), the S will be correct. Tap outside resources. Most people can’t work a crossword puzzle without a little outside help. But don’t just type a clue into an online search engine; be picky about the resources you use. Keep a quality dictionary, thesaurus, quotation resource, atlas, and almanac on hand. You can use hard copies of these sources, or you can choose their electronic forms. Ask for help. Make a crossword a social experience by asking help from friends or family members when you’re stuck. Check off each clue that you solve. Marking your progress gives you a sense of accomplishment and helps you focus on those clues that remain. Don’t stress. If a puzzle stops being fun and starts feeling like work, simply walk away and come back to it a little later. The answers may come more easily after you take a breather.

Article / Updated 04-26-2016

Indicator words are vital words that are found in many (but not all) cryptic clues for crosswords. These are words that indicate the type of wordplay being used, so they’re giving you a sort of coded message about what to do to get to the answer. The main clue devices that should always use indicator words are anagrams, containers, hidden words, reversals, deletions and homophones. Double definition and charade clues don’t have to have indicator words, but they are occasionally used. Cryptic definition clues don’t use indicator words, although they are often indicated with a question mark or exclamation mark. (This is one of the few times where you do need to pay attention to the punctuation!). Here is a list of the sorts of words you’ll find for these indicator words below. If you can learn to spot indicator words by context, you’ll have more cryptic solving success. Anagram indicators: These are words that give a sense of some word or words in the clue being jumbled up. These words can give a sense of things being broken, damaged, cooked, confused, upset, edited, ugly, insane, invented, engineered, out of sorts, designed, mishandled, drunk, built, versatile, rearranged, smashed, askew and so on (ad infinitum?!). Container indicators: These are words that give a sense of one thing being put around another thing, or one thing being put inside another thing. So words such as acquiring, keeping, possessing, devouring, hugging, amidst, occupying, getting into and set in can be used. Hidden word indicators: Hidden word indicators give a sense of something being found inside something else. Container indicators are often used, too. They may be words like a bit of, buried in, essentially, fragment, held in, part of or sample of. Reversal indicators: These indicators tell you to run some letters or a word backwards. They are words that give a sense of reversal (not surprisingly!) such as around, backslide, brought about, come back, flipped over, going west, knocked over or reflected. In down clues, a reversal indicator can give a sense of rising upwards, for example held up, lifted or skyward. Deletion indicators: These are words that tell you to delete some letters from a word. They give a sense of removal such as absent, excluding, losing, not, dropped, cut, without or short. Letter positions can also be indicated with deletion clues such as first, head, opener, tail, end, conclusion, half, middle, centre and so on. Homophone indicators: These words give a sense of something being listened to or said aloud. They can include words such as on the air, broadcast, I hear, said, declared, audibly, outspoken, reportedly, sounds like and vocal. Double definition and charade indicators: These clue devices don’t have to have indicator words, but if they are used, they generally just give a sense of one thing following another, being added to another, or of one thing leading from another. Words such as and, but, in which, makes, provides, next to, joining, on and with may be used.

Article / Updated 04-26-2016

While they do look completely incomprehensible at first glance, cryptic clues are actually written along strict guidelines. The majority of clues in a cryptic crossword adhere to these standards: Every cryptic clue includes a straight definition of the answer, just like in a ‘regular’ crossword. Astonishing, but true! The definition part of the clue will always be at the start or end of the clue, and never sandwiched in the middle. Most cryptic clues run along the lines of this formula: Definition + Wordplay = Answer, or Wordplay + Definition = Answer. The definition may be a straight synonym, or a more oblique reference to the answer. There are nine main wordplay devices used in cryptics: anagrams, reversals, deletions, charades, containers, hidden words, double definitions, homophones, and cryptic definitions. Abbreviations are used a great deal in cryptic clues, so it’s important to get a handle on these. The best way to tackle a cryptic clue is to try to ignore the first impression you get from reading the clue, and look at each word in the clue one by one to see if you can discover the definition and wordplay. There’s no need to solve the clues in a crossword in order, just look through the list until you see one that you think you might be able to get out. In general, you can ignore the punctuation in a clue — it’s mostly just there to mislead you! It’s perfectly okay to use a thesaurus to look for synonyms for the words at the start and end of the clue to see if they reveal the answer (from the definition). You can always work out the wordplay part after the fact, and try to figure out what the setter has done to make the clue work. It’s all part of the learning process! Different setters write clues slightly differently, so it’s best to get used to one setter’s style at first, rather than solving cryptics from all over the place.

Article / Updated 04-26-2016

Crossword puzzles are just plain fun to solve, not to mention the great mental workout you get. If you're new to working crosswords, keep the following basic tips in mind: Keep key resources, such as the following, on hand (whether in electronic or hard-copy form): A dictionary A slang dictionary A thesaurus An atlas An almanac Work in pencil. When you're an old pro, you may insist on working in pen to up the challenge. The phrasing of the clues determines each puzzle's difficulty, and it may take a while to get familiar with a puzzle's particular phrasing. Look for fill-in-the-blank answers first; most people find them among the easiest to solve.

Article / Updated 04-26-2016

Here are some basic abbreviations that are very useful to have by your side when cracking cryptic clues! The list is concise and only focuses on the harder abbreviations. Straightforward abbreviations and simple foreign words have been omitted from this list. 10 = X 100 = C 1,000 = M 5 = V 50 = L a follower = B about = C, CE, RE against = V (versus) alien = ET American soldier = GI ancient city = UR ancient times = BC Anglo-Saxon = AS Arabic = AR artist = RA (Royal Academy) Asian = E (Eastern) at home = IN bishop = B (chess) Bond’s boss = M book = B bridge player = N, S, E, W British = B, BR Capone = AL carbon copy = CC castle = R (rook) chapter = C or CH chief = CH Church of England = CE civil engineer = CE cross = X club/s = C (cards) Common Era = CE Cyprus = CY daughter = D degree = D, BA, MA diamond/s = D (cards) Diana = DI direction = N, S, E,W doctor = DR, MB, MD, MO dram = DR duck = O (cricketing) Elizabeth = E English = E exercise = PT or PE exist = BE fine = F (pencil), OK first = IST (1st) first class = AI (A1) fish = LING, EEL, COD etc. force = F former partner = EX France = F gas = H (hydrogen), CO (carbon monoxide), etc. George = G Georgia = GA (state), GE (country) German = G gold = AU or OR (heraldry) good = G good man = ST (saint) graduate = BA, MB Greek character or letter = PI, NU, MU, XI, etc. Guevara = CHE hard = H (pencil) heart/s = H (cards) hexadecimal = HEX honour = OBE hour = HR hug = O husband = H hush = SH I am = IM (I’m) in charge = IC instant message = IM integrated circuit = IC judge = J king = K or ER kiss = X last character = Z lawyer = BL (Bachelor of Law) letter = EF, EM, EL Liberal = L line = L (l looks like a line) loud = F (forte) midday = N (noon) model = T (Model T Ford) moment = MO monsieur = M months = MOS new = N newton = N (unit) no good = NG noon = N note = A – G, DO, RE, MI, FA, SO, LA, TI, TE, DOH, etc. nothing = O ocean = O old = O old boy = OB old city = UR old record = EP one = A, AN, I (1) operation = OP oriental = E (from the East) penny = P playing = ON (stage) point = N, S, E or W power = P present day = AD princess = DI printer’s measure = EN, EM private investigator = PI physical education = PE Public Record Office = PRO quarter = N, NE, NW, E etc queen = R, Q, or ER queen’s honour = OBE quiet = P (piano) ring = O resistance = R (unit) river = R, EXE, DEE, PO, etc. roughly = CA (circa) round = O sailor, salt = AB (able- bodied seaman) second = S second-class = B Shakespearean king = LEAR ship/s = SS short time = T single = I (1) society = S soft = P (music), B (pencil) son = S spade/s = S (cards) square = S teetotal/le = TT temperature = T thanks = TA the thing = IT times = X top class = AI (A1) translator = TR unknown = X or Y versus = V, VS very black = BB (pencil) vitamin = A, B, BI (B1), C, etc. vote = X wife = W will = LL (contraction) women’s supporter = BRA worker = ANT, BEE year = Y yours truly = I, ME