For example, in the cryptic crossword “Do legal owners free birds? (4-5,4)”, “free” would be the indicator word alerting you to the fact it is an anagram puzzle. For example, in the cryptic crossword “Beheaded celebrity is sailor (3)”, the word “beheaded” mean that a word loses its first letter. With cryptic definitions, these consist of just a definition and are phrased to be deliberately confusing. The indicator word comes next to the phrase that is anagram fodder and needs its letters reshuffling.

This would be because “fish round” would be “cod” with the letters reversed round the other way. Cryptic definitions In this case, “Do legal owners” is the anagram fodder, “birds” is the definition hint, so the answer is “Long-eared owls”. Charades For example, in the cryptic crossword “Yearn for quite a while (4)” the answer would be “long”, as it fits with both parts of the phrase. Hidden words For example, in the cryptic crossword “Pole coming from Pakistan or Thailand (5)” you can tell it is a hidden word, due to “from” being in the phrase.Another type is Charades, which is when a word or phrase is broke up into separate parts, as in a game of Charades.

However, with this new category, you have to wrap the outer word around the inner word (Container) or you have to put the inner word within the outer word (Content). If the inner word needs to go within the outer word (Content), look for indicator words such as “within”, “filling”, or “entering”. If the word is inside or around the cryptic indicator (Container), look out for indicator words such as “holding”, “surrounding,” or “swallowing.” For example, in the cryptic crossword “Narrow channel – not winding, we hear (6)”, the answer would be “strait”.Homophones are pairs of words or phrases that have indicators referring to sound, like “so we hear” or “it’s said” or “speech”.

You then look at the other words to reach the answer “tar”, as celebrity is also known as a “star” and you “behead” the first letter. Double definitions Containers and Contents are similar to Charades as they contain words or phrases that can be broken up into separate parts one after the other. There is a full list of them here, and can either mean removing the first letter, last letter, or a central letters, depending on which is used. Then you scan the letters for a word fitting the phrase, and the answer is “north”, found hidden between Pakista n or Thailand. HomophonesTypically “hidden” indicator words are used, such as “buried in”, “concealed” or even “in” and “from”. Your next step is to look at “relative” and “Highland dance and showing off” to get the final answer of “flaunting”, containing “aunt” for “relative” and “flaunting” for “showing off”. Deletions For example, in the cryptic crossword “Physician brings fish round (3)”, the answer would be “doc”.