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Crossword

CROSSWORD CLUES- LESSON 8

RECAP
Every Cryptic Crossword clue will contain a definition or key-word describing the answer (usually at the beginning or the end), or the whole clue will be the definition.

Lesson-1 was about ANAGRAMS or a re-arrangement of the letters. We have seen a number of examples. Usually, Anagram clues contain words like 'broken', 'jumbled' etc. to indicate they are anagrams.

Lesson-2 was about 'CHARADES, where the answer is broken into two or more manageable parts and a clue is provided for each part, usually in the same order. The elements may be defined directly or by the use of equivalents.

Lesson-3 was about 'CONTAINERS or SPLIT WORDS, which are similar to charades, but to get the answer that fits the definition, one part of the solution goes inside (or outside) the other, with an indicator to alert you.Again, the elements may be defined directly or by the use of equivalents.

Lesson-4 was about DELETIONS, in which the answer is arrived at by removing one or more letters at the begiining or end of the clue. These clues usually use flags such as "beheaded", "unbegun", and "after initial" to signal the removal of a word's first letter(s), and flags such as "endless" and "almost" to signal removal of a word's last letter(s).

Lesson-5 was about DOUBLE DEFINITION, in which you get two straight definitions or possibly one straight definition and a pun, both of which mean the same thing. Normally, Double Definition clues are very short.

Lesson-6 was about HIDDEN WORDS. The hidden word clue is probably one of the easiest to solve if you know what you're looking at., though the indicators are often the same as CONTAINERS (Split Word). In the hidden word clue, you can find the answer hiding in the letters of the clue. There are also some variations to watch out for, e.g., the words could be hidden backwards or on the ends or only every other letter or the first letters in a series of words may be clued. In each of these cases, you will be told how they are hidden by the indicator. For these clues, you could have "holds back", "off the borders", "oddly" (referring to the letters in the odd positions) and "heads of" respectively.

Lesson 7 was on Homophones, which are words that sound exactly alike such as BEAR and BARE. When they are used in a cryptic clue, both of them will be clued with a definition. Only one of these can be the right answer so the other one has an indicator that tells you that it only sounds like the right answer. Look for phrases such as "we hear", "sounds like", and "audience".

This month, I shall cover REVERSALS. In Reversal clues, the order of the letters in a clue word or phrase are reversed to find the answer. Reversals are always accompanied by a word or phrase that suggests reversal (or rising up, or heading left or west). For example, in the cryptic clue "Arrest lifting pans (4)" the word "lifting" suggests that either "pans" or its CHARADE must be reversed to create a word meaning "ARREST." When you think about it, you will quickly find that POTS mean PANS and when you reverse POTS, you get STOP, which means ARREST. So the solution is STOP. Another example is
Therefore, monster returned (4)
OGRE is monster and when you reverse OGRE, you get ERGO, which in Latin means THEREFORE.

A slightly more difficult example is
Returning students make a mistake (4,2)
The solution is SLIP UP, which is the reversal of PUPILS (Students).

As usual ten clues are given below. All the clues are any one or a combination of the six types covered so far, viz., ANAGRAM, CHARADE, CONTAINER (SPLIT WORD), DELETION , DOUBLE DEFINITION,HIDDEN WORD, HOMOPHONE or REVERSAL. As last time, the TYPE OF CLUE, the KEY-WORD (which is the synonym of the solution), the COMPONENTS of the solution and the SOLUTION will be revealed to you only if you want them by clicking on the button to the right. Get cracking....

Argue against returning root (5)

Group of soldiers dependent on other circumstances (10)

A game of tic-tac-toe demonstrates diplomacy (4)

Met punk, perhaps, looking rough (7)

Old Russian City fallen in grading, partly (9)

Care for catching hospital menace (6)

Big embrace before beginning of ecstasy! (4)

Leaderless baronets turn to US politician (7)

His rafts disturb sea creatures (8)

Mouse on the edge? (10)



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