The cryptic crossword is a form of torture developed only on the most depraved planets in the galaxy to have developed a written linguistic culture, such as Faframox Gamma, Kelper-37e, and, formerly, Earth.

Unlike a simple definitional crossword,¹ where the answer WAR CRIME may clued by, say, ‘Treaty law violation’, ‘Disaster Area concert tour’ or ‘Vogon poetry recital’, that part of a cryptic clue is generally supplemented by wording ostensibly giving a second route to the answer via its spelling and/or pronunciation.

In theory, this makes the clue easier, but in practice it can turn the entire exercise into the most sanity-warping time hoover since the Ultimate Halls of Fashion on the planet Oopsilon Watamilike decreed that no Oopsilonian could be seen in public without having first measured and tagged in ascending length order each and every hair on their (exceedingly hairy) body.

The reason this extra information actually makes life harder for the solver is that it gives the setter (compiler/constructor/tormentor) leeway and permission to disguise which part of the clue actually is the definition, and/or in what sense the definition is being used.

Even the definition may be grammatically devious, such as when ‘flower’ is used to indicate not a bloom on a plant but a thing that flows (a river), ‘butter’ not a dairy spread but a thing that butts (a goat), or ‘wicked item’ not something evil but something possessing a wick (a candle).

Additionally, the wordplay part of the clue is subject to a number of constructional rules or conventions that the solver just has to learn as they go along, and the decades-long quest to master these is the sole reason so many respectable journalists are perennially late filing copy (and not, as is often supposed, that they are out drinking and dancing).

Types of wordplay that can be used alone or (commonly) in combination include (but are not limited to):

• CHARADE – the answer is broken down into smaller parts, which are defined in order. These parts include shorter words, but also abbreviations and initials, if they are supported by dictionaries and/or common use.
• SECOND DEFINITION – clueing a different meaning of the answer word from the primary definition.

(These are the only two that don’t require an ‘indicator’ word or phrase hinting to the solver what sort of wordplay is being used.)

• ANAGRAM – the letters of the answer are jumbled into another word or phrase, referred to as ‘anagram fodder’. An ‘anagram indicator’ (anagrind – pronounced ‘Anna grinned’) typically suggests wrongness, disorder, or reassembly.
• HIDDEN (or TELESCOPIC) – the answer is presented unjumbled, in plain sight within some longer word or phrase, typically with different word breaks. A ‘hidden indicator’ is used to imply that the longer phrase owns, contains, or hides the answer.
• CONTAINER AND CONTENTS – if the answer can be seen to be made up of one word inside another, these are defined individually with a similar indicator implying containment or enclosure.
• DELETION – if the answer can be assembled from a longer (etymologically unrelated) word with one or more letters removed from it, the longer word is defined and an indicator given suggesting that the deleted letters are lost, abandoned, destroyed, etc. See also BITS & PIECES below.
• BITS & PIECES – individual letters or small clusters of letters in the answer may be indicated with reference to their position in some other word. ‘Head of…’, ‘top of…’, or ‘leader of…’ may indicate the first letter of the next word; ‘heart of’ can mean the one or two letters in the exact middle of it; ‘odd characters’ can mean alternate letters starting with the first; ‘periodically’ or ‘on occasion’ can mean every second (or third, or fourth…) letter without specifying a starting point, and so on. Which leads us to…
• ACROSTIC – initial letters of a string of words in the clue spell out the answer; indicated by a term such as ‘initially’, ‘at first’, etc.
• REVERSAL – where the answer or some part of it is another word written backwards, this is marked with an indicator such as ‘returning’, ‘going west’, or (in a down clue) ‘on the up’.

In all these cases, the wordplay comes at one end of the clue and the definition at the other; though the order, length of each, and demarcation between them may be disguised. There are two clue types where this does not hold true:

• CRYPTIC DEFINITION (or DAD JOKE) – No wordplay, just a groanworthy humorous definition. Indicates the setter is a frustrated comedian.
• &LIT (short for ‘and literally’) – The whole clue is the wordplay, but somehow also simultaneously the definition. Indicates the setter is an insufferable smartarse. While it is true that the setter of the Sidereal Daily Mentioner’s puzzle is also a lexicographer for the Maximegalon Hyperdictionary, any suggestions that previously unknown words appearing in the latter were coined specifically to solve a gridfilling problem in the former have been strenuously denied (and, furthermore, vollexipated).

While most crosswords use two-dimensional square grids, a few Earth-based setters occasionally try cubic ones. Only the Pizmatic Morgomites from the fifth moon of Yubb regularly set and solve tesseractic puzzles, and the only non-trivial 5d puzzle ever created was set by the supercomputer Deep Thought in the time between calculating the Ultimate Answer and being asked to deliver it. Unfortunately, the only possible gridfill contained six words so staggeringly offensive that no publication would consider running it. It is rumoured that Deep Thought has supplied the solution to Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, who is said to be storing it up for a particularly deserving recipient when he gets to the ‘Tr…’s, but nobody knows who this might be referring to.

— Dave Williams