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A 15x15 lattice-style grid is common for cryptic crosswords. A cryptic crossword is a crossword puzzle in which each clue is a word puzzle. Cryptic crosswords are particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where they originated, [1] as well as Ireland, the Netherlands, and in several Commonwealth nations, including Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malta, New Zealand, and South Africa.
The abbreviation is not always a short form of the word used in the clue. For example: "Knight" for N (the symbol used in chess notation) Taking this one stage further, the clue word can hint at the word or words to be abbreviated rather than giving the word itself. For example: "About" for C or CA (for "circa"), or RE.
Like a standard cryptic crossword clue, the surface reading of a Printer's Devilry clue has nothing to do with the answer. However, a cryptic crossword clue according to Ximenean rules comprises wordplay and a definition. Neither of these are present in a Printer's Devilry. For example, in the following clue:
Note that in a cryptic clue, there is almost always only one answer that fits both the definition and the wordplay, so that when one sees the answer, one knows that it is the right answer—although it can sometimes be a challenge to figure out why it is the right answer. A good cryptic clue should provide a fair and exact definition of the ...
Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon are a married, retired American puzzle-writing team.They wrote the "Atlantic Puzzler", a monthly cryptic crossword in The Atlantic magazine, from September 1977 to October 2009, [1] [2] and wrote cryptic crosswords every four weeks for The Wall Street Journal from 2010 to 2023.
Cryptic crosswords do not commonly appear in U.S. publications, although they can be found in magazines such as GAMES Magazine, The Nation, Harper's, and occasionally in the Sunday New York Times. The New York Post reprints cryptic crosswords from The Times. Other sources of cryptic crosswords in the U.S. (at various difficulty levels) are ...
On 18 August 1942, a day before the Dieppe raid, 'Dieppe' appeared as an answer in The Daily Telegraph crossword (set on 17 August 1942) (clued "French port"), causing a security alarm. The War Office suspected that the crossword had been used to pass intelligence to the enemy and called upon Lord Tweedsmuir , then a senior intelligence officer ...
Halpern's interest in The Guardian cryptic crossword puzzle began when he was a student in Canterbury, and he wondered if the compilers could possibly be human beings. [2] After completing a puzzle for the first time, he set about creating two of his own to send to his hero John Galbraith Graham , known as "Araucaria", and accomplished this two ...