The nine cryptic devices, explained with examples

Cryptic clues are built from a small, fixed set of parts. Setters have added ornament over a century of practice, but the mechanics come down to nine devices, and almost every clue in a daily puzzle is one of them or two of them combined. Learning the nine is not the same as being able to solve, but it converts the puzzle from something opaque into something with a finite number of moves. Each device below is defined, given its usual indicators, and demonstrated with an original clue worked through in full.

Device	What happens to the letters	Typical indicator
Anagram	Rearranged	broken, wild, cooked
Hidden word	Extracted unchanged	some of, partly, within
Charade	Joined in sequence	none, or on, with, after
Container	One string wrapped round another	in, holding, swallowing
Reversal	Written backwards	back, returning, up
Homophone	Sounded out	we hear, reportedly, said
Deletion	Letters removed	headless, endless, losing
Double definition	Nothing, two meanings	none
& lit.	Whole clue does both jobs	none

Anagram

The letters of a word or phrase given openly in the clue are rearranged to spell the answer. The clue contains a definition, the letters themselves, and a word instructing the shuffle.

Cheater reformed as an instructor (7). The definition is "an instructor". The fodder is CHEATER, seven letters, matching the enumeration. The indicator is "reformed". CHEATER rearranges to TEACHER. The arithmetic is the proof: cross the letters off one by one and nothing is left over on either side. The full range of shuffle words is collected in our list of anagram indicators.

Hidden word

The answer is spelled out inside the clue, in order, usually running across a boundary between two words. Nothing is rearranged.

Loaf partly made when timbre adjusts (5). The definition is "Loaf". The indicator is "partly". Run the letters together: T-I-M-B-R-E-A-D-J-U-S-T-S. Sitting across the join is BREAD. Hidden clues tend to be short, and the word that hides the answer is often an oddly specific noun dropped into an otherwise ordinary sentence. More of them, including reversed ones, are worked through in hidden words and how setters bury them.

Charade

Pieces of the answer are clued separately and written one after another, in the order given. There is often no indicator at all, which is what makes the charade hard to see: the clue simply lists its ingredients.

Criticise the king's big cat (7). The definition is "big cat". Criticise gives PAN. "The" gives THE. King gives R, the standard abbreviation from the Latin rex. PAN plus THE plus R makes PANTHER. Charades depend on knowing which words setters shorten to single letters, so a working knowledge of crossword abbreviations is worth more here than anywhere else in the puzzle.

Container

One string of letters is placed inside another. The clue tells you which goes in and which goes round, using words of enclosure or entry.

Sibling causing trouble around the river (7). The definition is "Sibling". Trouble gives BOTHER. River gives R. "Around" tells you BOTHER goes round R, and the only placement that spells a word is B plus R plus OTHER, giving BROTHER. Note that the clue does not say where inside the outer word the inner letters land. That is left to you, and the crossing letters usually settle it.

Reversal

A word is written backwards to give the answer. In across clues the indicators refer to going back or west. In down clues they refer to going up, rising or being raised. A setter who uses "up" in an across clue is breaking the convention.

Beer sent back is kingly (5). The definition is "kingly". Beer gives LAGER. "Sent back" reverses it to REGAL. Reversals are easy to verify and easy to miss, because the reversed word usually looks like nonsense until the moment it does not. When a clue names a drink, a river or a direction and also contains a backwards word, spell the candidate out in both directions before moving on.

Homophone

The answer sounds like another word, and the clue defines that other word while telling you to listen rather than read.

Chess piece said to be a time of darkness (6). The definition is "Chess piece". "Said to be" is the homophone marker. A time of darkness is NIGHT, and the piece that sounds like it is KNIGHT. Homophones are the one device that depends on accent, which is why setters keep to pairs that work in most varieties of English, and why a clue resting on a regional pronunciation is considered unfair.

Deletion

Letters are removed from a longer word. The clue names the longer word, says which part to drop, and defines what is left.

Bough that has lost its opener becomes a farm (5). The definition is "a farm". Bough gives BRANCH. "Lost its opener" removes the first letter, leaving RANCH. The vocabulary is small and physical: headless and decapitated take the first letter, endless and curtailed take the last, heartless takes the middle, and "almost" or "nearly" usually take the last letter too.

Double definition

There is no wordplay at all. The clue gives two separate definitions of the same word, side by side, with nothing between them but perhaps a link word.

Smoothing tool takes to the air (5). A PLANE is a carpenter's smoothing tool, and a plane takes to the air. Both halves define; neither builds. Double definitions are recognisable because the clue is short, contains no indicator of any kind, and reads as a slightly strange but grammatical sentence. The test is simply whether both ends survive being covered up, as described in spotting the definition.

& lit.

The rarest device, and the one setters are proudest of. The whole clue is the wordplay, and the whole clue is also the definition. Nothing is left over on either reading. The name is short for "and literally so".

Terribly angered (7). Read as wordplay: "terribly" is an anagram indicator and ANGERED is the fodder, giving ENRAGED. Read as a definition: someone terribly angered is enraged. Two complete readings, no spare words. The Azed slip archive is the standard place to see what setters and solvers consider a good one. A looser variant, the semi-& lit., lets part of the clue serve both jobs while the rest serves one.

Most clues in a daily puzzle combine two of these, most often an anagram inside a charade, or a container built from a reversal. The combinations are not a tenth device; they are the same nine applied twice. The fairness rules that keep the combinations solvable go back to the standards named after Ximenes, and the vocabulary used throughout is defined in our glossary.

The fastest way to fix the nine in memory is to solve one small puzzle slowly, naming the device in each clue as you go. Our clue-by-clue walkthrough does exactly that with a six-clue mini, and the Guardian beginners series covers the same ground device by device. For tools and further reading, this directory of solving references collects the usual sources in one place.