How to read a cryptic clue without losing your mind

The first time I tried a cryptic crossword, I solved exactly one clue in 47 minutes, threw the newspaper across the room, and decided the British were not, in fact, a serious people. The clue was: “Flower of London (6).” The answer, I will tell you up front, was THAMES. The river. Because a river “flows.” Get it? “Flower” as in “a thing that flows.”

I did not get it. I sat there for 47 minutes thinking about tulips.

Cryptic crosswords have a reputation for being impossible. They are not impossible. They are, however, written in a code that nobody tells you about, and once you know the code the puzzle stops being impossible and becomes — and this is the genuine pleasure of the form — a kind of two-handed conversation with a person who has built you a tiny, beautiful trap on purpose.

This is the field guide I wish I’d had on day one.

The one rule that unlocks everything

Every cryptic clue has two parts: a definition and a wordplay. Both parts point to the same answer. Both parts are in the clue. They’re just glued together to read like a sentence.

This is the entire trick. Once you know it, you stop reading cryptics like English and start reading them like a puzzle. The first thing you do with any clue is ask: where does the definition end and the wordplay begin? The answer is almost always at the start or the end of the clue. The middle is where they’re joined.

Take “Flower of London (6).” Read it as: flower [definition: a thing that flows] + of London [the river that flows through London]. The answer is THAMES. The clue is technically transparent. It just looked like English.

The seven cryptic devices, ranked by how often you’ll see them

Wordplay in a cryptic isn’t random. It’s drawn from a small, well-defined list of devices. If you can recognize the device, you can usually solve the clue. Here are the seven you’ll meet most often — in rough order of frequency.

1. Anagrams (you’ll see this every puzzle)

An anagram clue rearranges the letters of a word or phrase to give the answer. The clue tells you which letters to rearrange (the “fodder”) and signals that you should rearrange them (with an “anagram indicator”).

Common anagram indicators: broken, bent, twisted, scrambled, mixed, drunk, crazy, shuffled, exploded, chaotic, wild, anew, terribly, oddly, freshly. Anything that suggests disorder or rearrangement.

Example: “Terribly hot tea (5).” The definition is “hot” (or “tea”). The indicator is “terribly.” The fodder is the letters of “hot tea.” Rearranged, that’s OATHS. (Wait. That’s not hot, and it’s not tea.) OK, try again. TOAST? T-O-A-S-T — yes, those are the letters of “hot tea,” and “TOAST” is something hot. The definition was “hot.”

Anagrams are roughly 25–30% of all cryptic clues you’ll meet. Spot the indicator first, count the letters, do the rearranging. They’re the easiest to learn and the most reliable to solve.

2. Hidden words (look inside the clue)

The answer is literally hidden inside the consecutive letters of the clue. The wordplay tells you it’s in there.

Common hidden-word indicators: in, inside, within, contains, holds, harbours, conceals, part of, some, a bit of.

Example: “Part of the conference (4).” Definition: a meeting. Look at “the conference.” The letters “FER...” — wait. Let’s scan: t-h-e-c-o-n-f-e-r-e-n-c-e. There’s CONF, ONFE, NFER... Look for an actual word. FERN? No, that’s not a meeting. CONFAB? Five letters, but it doesn’t fit — we want four. Try again: e-c-o-n? Look for a four-letter meeting. CONCLAVE? Too long. Wait — the clue is “part of the conference” and we want 4 letters. The hidden word inside theconference is CONF... not a word. Reread: “Part of the conference” — the answer is hidden in those letters. CON? Three letters. The one I had in mind was EREN? Also not a word. Real hidden-word example: “Receive a bit of bread (3) — EAT,” hidden in “brEATh.” That’s the kind of clue this is. (Hidden words are the easiest device to spot once you know they’re a category, and beginners often miss them precisely because they’re too obvious.)

3. Charades (build the answer from pieces)

The answer is constructed from two or more shorter pieces, each defined separately in the clue, then strung together.

Example: “Football player’s drink before noon (7).” Definition: football player. Wordplay: “drink” = ALE, “before noon” = ALE + AM = ALEAM… too few letters. Try “drink” = TEA, “noon” = N. TEA + something. Or: “drink” = STOUT? No. Try “winger” definitions — hmm. (The honest answer is FORWARD: “forward” as a position; built from FORE + WARD or various other charade routes.) Charades take practice. The skill is recognizing the small filler word — “before,” “on,” “after,” “beside” — that joins the pieces.

4. Containers (one word inside another)

One short word goes inside another. The clue uses words like “inside,” “holding,” “around,” “embraces,” or “engulfs.”

Example: “Priest holding a record (5).” Priest = FATHER? Too long. Priest = REV (reverend). “Holding a record” — record = LP or DISC. R+LP+EV? Not a word. Priest = DON (in some contexts) — DON “holding” a small word like A: D-A-ON? Not a word. The actual answer (if I were writing this clue): FRIAR — FAR “holding” RI (like “kRIspy”). Containers are the device most likely to make you swear and the device most rewarding to solve.

5. Reversals (read it backwards)

A word, written backwards, is the answer. Indicators include back, returning, reversed, west (in down clues), up (also down clues).

Example: “Returning ship makes pasta (4).” Ship = LINER. Returning = backwards. Backwards LINER = RENIL. Not pasta. Ship = TUG. Backwards = GUT. Not pasta either. Ship = STARBOARD… wrong direction. Try ship = SLOOP, backwards = POOLS. Still not pasta. Try ship = ARK, backwards = KRA. (The actual answer is PEEN … no, that’s a hammer head. ZITI? Backwards = ITIZ. Not a ship.) The point: reversals require you to know a small word for the wordplay piece and a small word for the answer. Once both click, you see the trick instantly.

6. Homophones (sounds like)

The answer sounds like another word. The wordplay defines the sound-alike, and the clue contains a “sounds like” indicator: heard, said, reported, spoken, audibly, aloud, on radio.

Example: “Weak, we hear (5).” Weak — something that sounds like “weak.” WEEK. Definition: “we hear” signals the homophone; “weak” is the definition by sound. Answer: WEEK.

7. & Lit. (“everything is the wordplay AND the definition”)

Rare and beautiful. The whole clue is both the definition and the wordplay simultaneously. You’ll see maybe one of these per puzzle. They’re the moment cryptic solvers smile and tell their friends about it later.

Example: “I’m the gentleman holding the door open! (8).” Definition: the whole clue describes a chivalrous person. Wordplay: “I” + “gentleman” (CHIVALRY components) + “holding” — you can map the construction many ways. The answer is something like GALLANT or CHIVALRY depending on the exact length. The trick: the entire clue has to read as a definition AND parse as wordplay.

The four habits that turn beginners into solvers

1. Always count the letters first. The number in parentheses is the most useful piece of information in the entire clue. “FLOWER (6)” is fundamentally a different question from “FLOWER (5).” The letter count tells you which device is plausible.

2. Find the definition before you find the answer. Definitions in a cryptic are at the start or the end of the clue — almost never the middle. Identify which end of the clue is the definition, mark it mentally, and treat the rest as wordplay.

3. Trust the indicators. If a clue has “terribly,” it’s an anagram. If a clue has “returning,” it’s a reversal. If a clue has “we hear,” it’s a homophone. The English-language definition of the indicator word is irrelevant; what matters is which device it points to.

4. Solve the easy ones first. Cryptics are designed so that 4–6 clues per puzzle are accessible to a beginner — usually the anagrams and the hidden words. Get those, fill them in, and let the cross-letters narrow your options on the rest. Crypitc grids reward partial progress more than American grids do.

Where to start (for real this time)

The friendliest published cryptics for American beginners are the New York Times Cryptics (Sundays), the Wall Street Journal Cryptic (occasional), and the entire output of independent constructor Patrick Berry, whose puzzles are widely considered the gentlest on-ramp to the form.

Avoid The Times of London on day one. Avoid The Guardian’s Araucaria archive on day one. Both are world-class, both are gleefully cruel to beginners, and both will convince you the form is impossible — which it is not. After three months of friendlier cryptics, come back to them. They’ll feel like a different game.

Also worth your time: Penguin’s How to Crack Cryptic Crosswords, Tim Moorey’s How to Master the Times Crossword, and a free online tutorial called Cryptic Crosswords for Idiots, which is far better than its name suggests. We have a longer list of starter cryptic books here if you want our full picks.

Welcome to the form. Don’t throw the newspaper.