Wordplay

﻿Further Example﻿

So far we have learnt that a cryptic clue is almost always split into two parts - the definition and the subsidiary indication - and seen an example of a clue where the subsidiary indication is another definition:

Capital city in Georgia (6)

However, in the majority of clues the subsidiary indication will come in the form of wordplay, rather than a second definition.

Wordplay involves the solver finding synonyms of words, performing actions on words (such as finding an anagram or reversing the letters), and finding abbreviations. Once these are found, they need to be put together as the clue instructs to make the answer word.

To illustrate how wordplay works, let's remind ourselves of the example diagram from the previous page:

Here we can see that the clue's wordplay consists of the words RAILWAY FOLLOWING DEPRESSION.

To get to the answer word, the solver must (in this case) find the abbreviation of RAILWAY (RY), a synonym of DEPRESSION (LOW), and take heed of the instruction FOLLOWING to put RY after LOW to create the painter LOWRY.

These are the basics of wordplay - finding synonyms and abbreviations of words and putting them together to form the answer word.

Here we can see that the wordplay consists of the words CAREER and KNOCK. When the solver finds the correct synonym for each, SPEED and BUMP, they make the answer word which is confirmed by the definition. Again, this is the fundamental nature of wordplay - building the answer word by putting words or parts of words together.

These examples should start to give an insight into another fundamental part of cryptic crosswords. The words in the surface reading of the clue (the clue as read on the page) have a different meaning in what is known as the cryptic reading of the clue.

It is this contrast between surface and cryptic reading that will be further explained in the next section of the guide.