Cryptic crossword

There are notable differences between British and North American (including Canadian) cryptics. American cryptics are thought of as holding to a more rigid set of construction rules than British ones. American cryptics usually require all words in a clue to be used in service of the wordplay or definition, whereas British ones allow for more extraneous or supporting words. In American cryptics, a clue is only allowed to have one subsidiary indication, but in British cryptics the occasional clue may have more than one; e.g., a triple definition clue would be considered an amusing variation in the UK but unsound in the US.

For the most part, cryptic crosswords are an English-language phenomenon, although similar puzzles are popular in a Hebrew form in Israel (where they are called tashbetsey higayon (תשבצי הגיון) "Logic crosswords")[11] and (as Cryptogram) in Dutch. In Poland similar crosswords are called "Hetman crosswords". 'Hetman', a senior commander, and also the name for a queen in Chess, emphasises their importance over other crosswords. In Finnish, this type of crossword puzzle is known as piilosana (literally "hidden word"), while krypto refers to a crossword puzzle where the letters have been coded as numbers. The German ZEITmagazin has a weekly cryptic crossword called Um die Ecke gedacht and the SZ Magazin features das Kreuz mit den Worten.

In India the Telugu publication Sakshi carries a "Tenglish" (Telugu-English, bilingual) cryptic crossword;[12] the Prajavani and Vijaya Karnataka crossword (Kannada) also employs cryptic wordplay.[13] Enthusiasts have also created cryptic crosswords in Hindi.[14] Since 1994, enigmista Ennio Peres has challenged Italians annually with Il cruciverba più difficile del mondo (The World's Most Difficult Crossword), which has many features in common with English-style cryptics.[15]

In Chinese something similar is the riddle of Chinese characters, where partial characters instead of substrings are clued and combined.

Animation for the anagram CORSET = ESCORT

An anagram is a rearrangement of a certain section of the clue to form the answer. This is usually indicated by words such as "strange", "bizarre", "muddled", "wild", "drunk", or any other term indicating change. One example:

Chaperone shredded corset (6)

gives ESCORT, which means chaperone and is an anagram of corset, indicated by the word shredded.

Anagram clues are characterized by an indicator word adjacent to a phrase that has the same number of letters as the answer. The indicator tells the solver that there is an anagram they need to solve to work out the answer. Indicators come either before or after the letters to be anagrammed. In an American cryptic, only the words given in the clue may be anagrammed; in some older puzzles, the words to be anagrammed may be clued and then anagrammed. So in this clue:

Chew honeydew fruit (5)

Chew is the anagram indicator; honeydew clues melon, which is to be anagrammed; and fruit is the definition for the answer, LEMON. This kind of clue is called an indirect anagram, which in the vast majority of cryptic crosswords are not used, ever since they were criticised by 'Ximenes' in his 1966 book On the Art of the Crossword. Minor exception: simple abbreviations may be used to spice up the process; e.g., "Husband, a most eccentric fellow" (6) for THOMAS, where the anagram is made from A, MOST, and H = husband.

Anagram indicators, among the thousands possible, include: about, abstract, absurd, adapted, adjusted, again, alien, alternative, anew, another, around, arranged, assembled, assorted, at sea, awful, awkward, bad, barmy, becomes, blend, blow, break, brew, build, careless, changed, chaotic, characters, clumsy, composed, confused, contrived, convert, cooked, corrupt, could be, crazy, damaged, dancing, designed, develop, different, disorderly, disturbed, doctor, eccentric, edited, engineer, fabricate, fake, fancy, faulty, fiddled, fix, foolish, form, free, fudge, gives, ground, hammer, haywire, hybrid, improper, in a tizzy, involved, irregular, jostle, jumbled, jumping, kind of, knead, letters, loose, made, managed, maybe, messy, mistaken, mix, modified, moving, muddled, mutant, new, novel, odd, off, order, organised, otherwise, out, outrageous, peculiar, perhaps, playing, poor, possible, prepared, produced, queer, questionable, random, reform, remodel, repair, resort, rough, shaken, shifting, silly, sloppy, smashed, somehow, sort, spoilt, strange, style, switch, tangled, treated, tricky, troubled, turning, twist, unconventional, undone, unsettled, unsound, untidy, unusual, upset, used, vary, version, warped, wayward, weird, wild, working, wrecked, wrong.

It is common for the setter to use a juxtaposition of anagram indicator and anagram that form a common phrase to make the clue appear as much like a 'normal' sentence or phrase as possible. For example:

Lap dancing friend (3)

uses dancing as the indicator as it fits cohesively with lap to give the solution, PAL.

Here, the answer is formed by joining individually clued words to make a larger word (namely, the answer).

For example:

Outlaw leader managing money (7)

The answer is BANKING formed by BAN for "outlaw" and KING for "leader". The definition is "managing money". With this example, the words appear in the same order in the clue as they do in the answer, and no special words are needed to indicate this. However, the order of the parts is sometimes indicated with words such as "against", "after", "on", "with" or "above" (in a down clue).

A container clue puts one set of letters inside another. So:

Apostle's friend outside of university (4)

gives PAUL ("apostle"), by placing "pal" ("friend") outside of "U" ("university"); the "'s" could be treated as the genitive case suffix or as short for "is".

A similar example:

Utter nothing when there's wickedness about (5)

The answer is VOICE ("utter"), formed by placing "O" ("nothing") inside the word "vice" ("wickedness").

Other container indicators are "inside", "over", "around", "about", "clutching", "enters", and the like.

Deletions consist of beheadments, curtailments, and internal deletions. In beheadments, a word loses its first letter. In curtailments, it loses its last letter, and internal deletions remove an inner letter, such as the middle one.

An example of a beheadment:

Beheaded celebrity is sailor (3)

The answer would be TAR, another word for "sailor", which is a "celebrity", or star, without the first letter.

Other indicator words of beheadment include "don't start", "topless", and "after the first".

An example of curtailment:

Shout, "Read!" endlessly (3)

The answer is BOO. If you ignore the punctuation, a book is a "read", and book "endlessly" is boo, a "shout".

Other indicators include "nearly" and "unfinished".

An example of internal deletion:

Challenging sweetheart heartlessly (6)

The answer is DARING, which means "challenging", and is darling without its middle letter, or "heartlessly".

Note that "sweetheart" could also be simply "wee" or the letter "E", that is, the "heart" (middle) of "sweet".

A clue may, rather than having a definition part and a wordplay part, have two definition parts. Thus:

Not seeing window covering (5)

would have the answer BLIND, because blind can mean both "not seeing" and "window covering". Note that since these definitions come from the same root word, an American magazine might not allow this clue. American double definitions tend to require both parts to come from different roots, as in this clue:

Eastern European buff (6)

This takes advantage of the two very different meanings (and pronunciations) of POLISH, the one with the long "o" sound meaning "someone from Poland" and the one with the short "o" sound meaning "make shiny".

These clues tend to be short; in particular, two-word clues are almost always double-definition clues.

In the UK, multiple definitions are occasionally used; e.g.:

Blue swallow feathers fell from above (4)

is a quintuple definition of DOWN ("blue" (sad), "swallow" (drink), "feathers" (plumage), "fell" (cut down) and "from above"),[16] but in the US this would be considered unsound.

Some British newspapers have an affection for quirky clues of this kind where the two definitions are similar:

Let in or let on (5) – ADMIT

Note that these clues do not have clear indicator words.

When the answer appears in the clue but is contained within one or more words, it is hidden. For example:

Found ermine, deer hides damaged (10)

gives UNDERMINED, which means (cryptically at least) "damaged" and can be found as part of "Found ermine deer". The word "hides" is used to mean "contains," but in the surface sense suggests "pelts". A complication is that "damaged" often (but not in this clue) means "rearrange the letters".

Possible indicators of a hidden clue are "in part", "partially", "in", "within", "hides", "conceals", "some", and "held by".

Another example:

Introduction to do-gooder canine (3)

gives DOG, which is the first part of, or "introduction to", the word "do-gooder", and means "canine". Hidden words clues are sometimes called "Embedded words" or "Telescopic clues". The opposite of a hidden word clue, where letters missing from a sentence have to be found, is known as a Printer's Devilry, and appears in some advanced cryptics.

There are several common techniques used in Hidden Word clues.

The first letters of part of the clue are put together to give the answer.

An example of an initialism:

Initially amiable person eats primate (3)

The answer would be APE, which is a type of primate. "Initially" signals that you must take the first letters of "amiable person eats" – "ape".

Another example would be:

At first, actor needing new identity emulates orphan in musical theatre (5)

The answer would be ANNIE, the name of a famous orphan in musical theatre. This is obtained from the first letters of "actor needing new identity emulates".

Words that indicate initialisms also include "firstly" and "to start".

It is possible to have initialisms just for certain parts of the clue. It is also possible to employ the same technique to the end of words. For example:

Old country lady went round Head Office initially before end of day (7)

The answer would be DAHOMEY, which used to be a kingdom in Africa (an "old country"). Here, we take the first letters of only the words "Head Office" (ho) and we take the "end" of the word "day" (y). The letters of the word "dame", meaning "lady", are then made to go around the letters "ho" to form Dahomey.

Either the odd or even letters of words in the clue give the answer. An example is:

Odd stuff of Mr. Waugh is set for someone wanting women to vote (10)

The answer would be SUFFRAGIST, which is "someone wanting women to vote". The word "odd" indicates that we must take every other letter of the rest of the clue, starting with the first: StUfF oF mR wAuGh Is SeT.

Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings, such as "night" and "knight". Homophone clues always have an indicator word or phrase that has to do with phonetics, such as "reportedly", "they say", "utterly" (here treated as "utter(ing)-ly" and not with its usual meaning), "vocal", "to the audience", "auditioned", "by the sound of it", "is heard", "in conversation" and "on the radio". "Broadcast" is a particularly devious indicator as it could indicate either a homophone or an anagram.

An example of a homophone clue is

We hear twins shave (4)

which is a clue for PARE, which means "shave" and is a homophone of pair, or "twins". The homophone is indicated by "we hear".

If the two words are the same length, the clue should be phrased in such a way that only one of them can be the answer. This is usually done by having the homophone indicator adjacent to the word that is not the definition; therefore, in the previous example, "we hear" was adjacent to "twins" and the answer was pare rather than pair. The indicator could come between the words if they were of different lengths and the enumeration was given, such as in the case of "right" and "rite".

The letter bank form of cluing consists of a shorter word (or words) containing no repeated letters (an "isogram"), and a longer word or phrase built by using each of these letters (but no others) at least once but repeating them as often as necessary. This type of clue has been described by American constructors Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto, who write the weekly puzzle for The Nation. The shorter word is typically at least three or four letters in length, while the target word or phrase is at least three letters longer than the bank word. For example, the four letters in the word TENS can be used as a bank to form the word TENNESSEE. Typically, the clue contains indicator words such as "use," "take," or "implement" to signal that a letter bank is being employed.

A more complicated example of a letter bank is:

Composer taking and retaking ingredients of Advil? Not! (7,7)

In this case, "ingredients" signals that the letters of both "Advil" and "Not" form the bank. Those letters yield the answer, ANTONIO VIVALDI.

Kosman and Picciotto consider this to be a newer and more complicated form of cluing that offers another way, besides the anagram, of mixing and recombining letters.[17]

A word that gets turned around to make another is a reversal. For example:

Returned beer fit for a king (5)

The answer is REGAL. "Lager" (i.e., "beer") is "returned" to make regal, i.e. fit for a king.

Other indicator words include "receding", "in the mirror", "going the wrong way", "returns", "reverses" "to the left" or "left" (for across clues), and "rising", "overturned" or "mounted" or "comes up" (for down clues).

Here the clue appears to say one thing, but with a slight shift of viewpoint it says another. For example:

Flower of London? (6)

gives THAMES, a flow-er of London. Here, the surface reading suggests a blossom, which disguises the fact that the name of a river is required. Notice the question mark: this is often (though by no means always) used by compilers to indicate this sort of clue is one where you need to interpret the words in a different fashion. The way that a clue reads as an ordinary sentence is called its surface reading and is often used to disguise the need for a different interpretation of the clue's component words.

This type of clue is common in British and Canadian cryptics but is a bit less common in American cryptics; in American-style crosswords, a clue like this is generally called a punny clue. It's almost certainly the oldest kind of cryptic clue: cryptic definitions appeared in the UK newspaper puzzles in the late 1920s and early 1930s that mixed cryptic and plain definition clues and evolved into fully cryptic crosswords.

A relatively uncommon clue type, a Spoonerism is a play on words where corresponding consonant clusters are switched between two words in a phrase (or syllables in a word) and the switch forms another pair of proper sounding words. For example: "butterfly" = "flutter by".

Both the solution word or phrase and its corresponding Spoonerism are clued for, and the clue type is almost always indicated by reference to Spooner himself – with some regions/publications insisting his religious title "Rev." or "Reverend" be included. In contrast to all other clue types, this makes them almost impossible to disguise. But that doesn't necessarily make them easy.

An example of a Spoonerism clue is:

He will casually put down Spooner's angry bear (9)

The answer is LITTERBUG (He will casually put down). The Spoonerism is "bitter" (angry) and "lug" (bear, as in carry).

The vast majority of Spoonerism clues swap the first consonants of words or syllables, but Spoonerisms are not strictly restricted to that form and some setters will take advantage of this. John Henderson (Enigmatist in the Guardian) once clued for the Spoonerism "light crick" from "right click",[18] which didn't sit well with many solvers.

An "&lit." or "Literal" clue is not a clue type, but, rather a variant on an existing clue. "&lit" stands for "and literally so". In this case, the entire clue is both a definition and a cryptic clue. In some publications &lit clues are indicated by an exclamation mark at the end of the clue. For example:

God incarnate, essentially! (4)

The answer is ODIN. The Norse god Odin is hidden in "god incarnate", as clued by "essentially", but the definition of Odin is also the whole clue, as Odin is essentially a God incarnate.

This satisfies the "& lit." clue definition but as read is clearly a cryptic clue. Another example:

Spoil vote! (4)

would give the answer VETO; in the cryptic sense, spoil works as an anagram indicator for vote, while the whole clue is, with a certain amount of licence allowed to crossword setters, a definition.

Another example:

e.g., Origin of goose (3)

gives the answer EGG. Geese find their origins in eggs, so the whole clue gives "egg", but the clue can also be broken down: e.g., loses its full stops to give eg, followed by the first letter (i.e., the "origin") of the word goose—g—to make egg.

Daily Telegraph Tuesday 22 April 2014 has: "Dog in wild? Yes! (5)"; the answer is DINGO. "Dog in wild" means "rearrange the letters of "DOG IN", and is the definition.

It is very common for a clue to employ more than one method of wordplay. For example:

Illustrious baron returns in pit (9)

The answer is HONORABLE. "Baron" "returns", or is reversed, and put inside "pit" or hole, to make honorable, or "illustrious".

In this example, the clue uses a combination of Reversal and Hidden clue types:

Cruel to turn part of Internet torrid (6)

The answer to this clue is ROTTEN. The phrase "to turn" indicates "to reverse," and "part of" suggests a piece of "Internet torrid".

To make clues more difficult, cryptic constructors will frequently use traditional indicator words in a misleading manner.

• A cryptic crossword on the back page of the Daily Telegraph on 14 March 2012 included the answer ANALYSIS, whose clue was "Close study of broken nails, say (8)": "say" in cryptic crossword clues normally means "a word pronounced the same as" or "for example", but here it is part of an anagram.
• Daily Telegraph back page, 8 November 2012: "Drunk compiler's admitted boob (5)" means "Means 'drunk', MY contains ERR, has 5 letters", = MERRY. ("Drunk" often mean "rearrange the letters", but not this time.)
• In a crossword by Araucaria, "Araucaria is" coded for IAM (= "I am") as part of an answer.
• Daily Telegraph page 30, 25 February 2014: "French place in island beset by cold sadly": "sadly" usually means "damaged", "with the letters rearranged", but here it codes for "alas"; I inside C ALAS makes CALAIS, which is a French place.
• Daily Telegraph page 32, 3 April 2014: "Bug starts to move in dark, glowing endlessly (5)": usually "endlessly" and similar mean "remove the last letter", but here it is one of five consecutive words to form an acronym from, as the word "starts" shows; the answer is MIDGE.
• Daily Telegraph page 18, 1 September 2015: 4 down: "How one may find Etna to increase danger? (2,3,4)": the answer (UP THE ANTE) describes how to make the clue word ETNA, which is the reverse of usual.
• Daily Telegraph page 30, 27 March 2017: 10 down: "One might see flow in this game (8)": the answer (WILDFOWL) describes how to make the clue word FLOW, which is the reverse of usual; "game" is as in sport shooting.
• Daily Telegraph page 16, 2 May 2017: 1 across: "Schoolchild's punishment, devising a cryptic clue for 'crows'? (7,5)": the answer is HUNDRED LINES: reverse of the usual way to use a Roman number.
• Daily Telegraph page 32, 14 November 2017: 28 across: "Very old diamonds, say (5)": V O ICE: "say" in cryptic crossword clues normally means "a word pronounced the same as" or "for example", but here it is the definition; the word "voice" can be used as a verb.
• Daily Telegraph page 34, 22 March 2018: 3 down: "Trouble from wind is turbulent": answer is DISTURB; the word "turbulent" suggests forming an anagram, which does not happen here.
• A clue in the Daily Telegraph September 2018 started "Communist leader", which would be expected to mean the letter C; but this time it was the definition, and the answer was CHE GUEVARA.
• Daily Telegraph page 30, 3 June 2019: 20 down: "Discover the truth about \ gang fight in New York City": both parts are definitions of "RUMBLE" :: in a British newspaper, although "rumble" for "gang fight" is American street gang jargon.
• Daily Telegraph page 30, 21 June 2019: 12 across: "Greek goddess, flanked by banks of Tigris in ancient city (6)": The Greek goddess is HEBE, not one much known of; between the first and last letters of TIGRIS, makes THEBES; "ancient city" usually means UR, but not here.

• A cryptic crossword in the Sunday Telegraph on Easter Sunday 2014 had an anagram clue whose answer was EASTER SUNDAY, and its definition part was "today".
• Daily Telegraph on 8 April 2019, page 30: 5 down: "Parade one month ago (5,4)": its answer was MARCH PAST; that clue would be valid only in April each year.
• In a cryptic crossword in the British newspaper Daily Telegraph (20 April 2017), the clue "Irritating proverb we're told (4) (SORE = "saw") depends on a homophony which only happens in non-rhotic pronunciation such as in British English.

In Britain it is traditional — dating from the cryptic crossword pioneer Edward (Bill) Powys Mathers (1892–1939), who called himself "Torquemada" after the Spanish Inquisitor — for compilers to use evocative pseudonyms. "Crispa", named from the Latin for "curly-headed", who set crosswords for the Guardian from 1954[19] until her retirement in 2004, legally changed her surname to "Crisp" after divorcing in the 1970s. Some pseudonyms have obvious connotations: for example, Torquemada as already described, or "Mephisto" with fairly obvious devilish overtones. Others are chosen for logical but less obvious reasons, though "Dinmutz" (the late Bert Danher in the Financial Times) was produced by random selection of Scrabble tiles.

The Daily Telegraph/Sunday Telegraph

The Telegraph, like the Times, does not identify the setter of each puzzle but, unlike the Times, has a regular setter for each day of the week, plus a few occasional setters to cover holidays or sickness. Regular setters include John Halpern, Ray Terrell, Jeremy Mutch, Don Manley, Allan Smith, Steve Bartlett and Richard Palmer. The regular setters as of 1 November 2006 are shown in a photograph here. The crossword editor is Chris Lancaster, who took over from Phil McNeill in early 2018. There is an advanced cryptic called Enigmatic Variations in the Sunday Telegraph, and also a 15×15 blocked-grid puzzle.

In September 2008 the Telegraph started printing a 'Toughie' crossword as well as the daily puzzle, from Tuesday to Friday. This is described by the paper as "the toughest crossword in Fleet Street" or similar and does include the setter's pseudonym. Comments from some solvers on these puzzles don't always agree with this assessment, rating maybe half of them as close to average broadsheet cryptic difficulty.

The Guardian

Notable compilers of The Guardian's cryptic crosswords include Enigmatist, Pasquale, Paul (John Halpern again), Rufus (now retired), and the late Bob Smithies (Bunthorne) and Araucaria. The puzzle is edited by Hugh Stephenson.

The Independent

The Independent went online only in 2016, but still has a cryptic crossword. Setters include Virgilius, Dac, Phi, Quixote, Nimrod, Monk, Nestor, Bannsider, Anax, Merlin, Mass, Math, Morph, Scorpion, Tees and Punk (John Halpern). The daily puzzle is edited by Eimi (Mike Hutchinson).

i

The i newspaper was launched in 2010 as a sister paper to The Independent, but was bought by Johnston Press in February 2016 when The Independent moved to digital-only publication. The fiendish Inquisitor puzzle is edited by John Henderson whose predecessor was the late former Times crossword editor Mike Laws. The crosswords are often themed and may contain a Nina: a hidden feature.

The National

Launched in Scotland as "The Newspaper that supports an independent Scotland" on 24 November 2014 after the independence referendum on 18 September. The National has a daily cryptic crossword after a request from readers to include one. The National is the only daily pro-independence newspaper in Scotland and is edited by Sunday Herald editor Richard Walker.

The Observer

Home of the famous Azed crossword, which employs a barred grid and a wider vocabulary than standard cryptics, and in conjunction with its predecessors 'Torquemada' and 'Ximenes' is the longest-running series of barred-grid puzzles. On the first Sunday of every month and at Christmas, Azed runs a clue-writing competition, via which many of today's top compilers have learnt their trade. The Observer also features a standard cryptic crossword, the Everyman, compiled by Allan Scott.

Private Eye

In the early 1970s the satirical magazine Private Eye had a crossword set by the Labour MP Tom Driberg, under the pseudonym of "Tiresias" (supposedly "a distinguished academic churchman"). It is currently set by Eddie James under the name "Cyclops". This crossword is usually topical, and contains material varying from risqué to rude, in clues, answers and the solver's head; much of the rudeness is by innuendo. It also often includes references to the content of the rest of the magazine, or its jargon in which, for example, the current monarch of the UK is "Brenda" and the likely next one "Prince Brian". The £100 prize for the first correct solution opened is unusually high for a crossword and attracts many entrants.

The Radio Times

Roger Prebble has compiled the cryptic crossword since 1999.

Significance

Significance is a joint publication between the American Statistical Association and the Royal Statistical Society; it contains a cryptic crossword in its puzzle section. The magazine offers a randomly awarded $150 or £100 to spend on Wiley books for those that submit a correct entry.

The Spectator

Cryptics in the weekly Spectator often have a specific theme, such as a tribute to a public figure who has died recently or a historic event that has its anniversary this week. As in most British periodicals, the cryptic in the Spectator is numbered: in the Spectator's case, a puzzle's theme may be related to its specific number (such as a historic event that occurred in the year corresponding to the four-digit number of the puzzle for that week). Compilers include Doc (the puzzle editor as well as chief setter), Dumpynose (an anagram for 'Pseudonym') and Columba.

The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times cryptic crossword is compiled in rotation by three setters: Jeff Pearce, Dean Mayer and David McLean, the latter taking over from Tim Moorey in January 2016. (Mr Moorey's final puzzle included the hidden message 'Farewell from Tim'; he continues to set Mephisto puzzles.) The position of puzzles editor is now held by Peter Biddlecombe. Until her retirement in December 2010, Barbara Hall was puzzles editor for 32 years, and wrote about half the paper's cryptic crosswords. The Sunday Times is also home to the difficult barred-grid Mephisto puzzle, currently set in rotation by Don Manley, Paul McKenna and Tim Moorey. Previous Mephisto setters were Richard Kilner (only setter, 1959 to 1973), Richard Whitelegg (only setter, 1973 to 1995), Chris Feetenby (1995-2008) and Mike Laws (1995-2011).[20]

The Times

Adrian Bell was the first to set The Times crossword from 1930[21] and was one of those responsible for establishing its distinctive cryptic style. (The Times was a relatively late adopter: the Telegraph crossword started in 1925, and the Guardian in 1929.) The Times has a team of about 15 setters, many of whom set puzzles for other papers. The setter of each puzzle is not identified. The Times also has "jumbo" (23×23) puzzles in the Saturday edition and since 1991 has provided a home for the famously difficult advanced cryptic puzzle which used to appear in the BBC's The Listener.

The daily Times puzzle is syndicated in the New York Post (US) and The Australian (Aus) papers. In both cases, the puzzle appears some weeks after it appeared in The Times.

In October 2007, The Bugle—a TimesOnline podcast by John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman—introduced the first, revolutionary "Audio Cryptic Crossword."[22]

Viz magazine

Since 2009 the adult comic magazine Viz has incorporated a cryptic crossword credited to Anus. This is a collaboration of two setters, one of whom has a minor role in supplying some pre-written clues. In keeping with the comic's "top shelf" status the puzzle content is an amalgam of humour and obscenity, although the clueing style retains both Libertarian and Ximenean disciplines.

The Age (Australia)

(see Sydney Morning Herald)

The Atlantic (US)

The Atlantic magazine had a long-running variety cryptic crossword, known as the Puzzler, created by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon beginning in 1977,[23] available only online since March 2006. The final original Puzzler was published in August 2009 for the September issue. An online archive of Puzzlers going back to 1997 is still available.[24]

Games World of Puzzles (US)

Originally two separate publications, "GAMES" and "World of Puzzles", the two were merged in 2014 to become "GAMES WORLD OF PUZZLES," published nine times a year. The publication currently features two basic cryptics and two variety cryptics in each issue. Some other puzzles in the publication include cryptic elements, such as double definition puzzles or hidden word puzzles.

The Globe and Mail (Canada)

"Canada's national newspaper" includes a daily cryptic somewhat less difficult than its British cousins. The crossword also comes with another set of "Quick Clues" (American-style) which provide a completely different set of answers. Fraser Simpson compiles the Saturday cryptic; he also used to compile an advanced cryptic in The Walrus. Once a year on Canada Day, The Globe published a large 24×24 bar-diagram cryptic, but as of 2015 it no longer does.

The Geraldine News (New Zealand)

This weekly local paper carries a cryptic once a month. It is compiled by Geraldine resident Jim Walton and titled JW Cryptic Crossword. As at April 2019, Jim had provided 244 cryptic crosswords for the paper.

Harper's (US)

This magazine features a monthly variety cryptic by Richard Maltby, Jr., aimed at advanced solvers.

The Hindu (India)

The Hindu newspaper carries cryptic crosswords in the main paper from Monday to Saturday, and a much tougher Sunday Crossword in the Sunday Magazine supplement. The weekday crosswords are set by setters with the pseudonyms Gridman, Arden, Incognito, Afterdark, Buzzer, Neyartha, Scintillator, xChequer, Lightning, Sunnet, Spinner, Aspartame, Mac, Dr. X, KrisKross among others.[25] In every cycle, a setter publishes a certain number of crosswords allotted to him or her, unlike British papers where things are mostly random. The Sunday Crossword is a syndicated crossword from the UK newspaper The Observer.

The first setter of the Monday-Saturday cryptic crosswords was Retired Admiral Ram Dass Katari of the Indian Navy,[26] who took up the task in 1971 at the request of Gopalan Kasturi, then editor of The Hindu. The crossword has a regular following, and while The Hindu publishes the solutions on the following day, the annotated solution is put up on the same day at the website 'The Hindu Crossword Corner' by a group of solvers on the same day.

Irish Times

The Irish Times originally provided a daily puzzle by "Crosaire" (Derek Crozier), which featured a fairly unorthodox style of clue-writing. The paper continued to run his puzzles after his death in April 2010. The last of Crozier's crosswords was published in the Irish Times on 22 October 2011. The Irish Times' cryptic crossword is currently set by Crosaire's successor Crosheir.[27]

The Listener (New Zealand)

This weekly magazine includes a cryptic by David Tossman, who took over from RWH (Ruth Hendry) in 1997. RWH had been providing a mixed (some cryptic clues) puzzle since 1940.

Lovatts Crosswords

Lovatts Crosswords are a range of magazines sold throughout the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Christine Lovatt is the main cryptic compiler, and she has been so for 30 years.

The Nation (US)

This liberal American political weekly has featured a weekly cryptic puzzle since 1947. Frank W. Lewis wrote the puzzle from late 1947 until his retirement in late 2009. Lewis developed one of the most recognizably personal styles of cryptic setting, and The Nation published book collections of his puzzles. Since December 2011, the weekly puzzle has been written by Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto. Their last cryptic for the magazine was published in March 2020.[28]

The National Post (Canada)

Carries a weekly puzzle by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon.

New York Magazine

Stephen Sondheim's puzzles for New York Magazine have been collected in book form. Sondheim is himself a collector of old-time puzzles and board games.

New Yorker

For some of the time that this magazine was edited by Tina Brown (1997–1999), it included a small (8×10) barred-grid cryptic crossword, set by a range of American and Canadian setters. These puzzles are also available in a book collection.

New York Times

Two weeks in every 18, the "variety puzzle" in the Sunday edition is a cryptic crossword, usually by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, Richard Silvestri, or Fraser Simpson. One week in 18, it's a "Puns and Anagrams" puzzle, a relic of a 1940s attempt to introduce cryptic puzzles to the US.

The New Zealand Herald (Auckland New Zealand)

The weekend edition features a cryptic crossword by "Kropotkin" (Rex Benson) in addition to syndicated crosswords from the UK and Australia.[29]

Ottawa Citizen

The Ottawa Citizen has carried a weekly puzzle by Susannah Sears since 2001.

Sydney Daily Telegraph

Prints the "Stickler" puzzle, set by David Stickley.

Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (Australia)

Fairfax Media papers, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, print a daily puzzle, which was also available free on-line until 31 August 2009. Various compilers (setters) compose the puzzles, each being indicated by their initials. As of November 2013, compilers from Monday to Saturday include LR (Liam Runnalls), RM (Rose McGinley), DP (David Plomley), DH (Donald Harrison), NS (Nancy Sibtain), DA (David Astle), and DS (David Sutton).

The Toronto Star (Canada)

Includes a cryptic crossword in the Saturday edition in the Puzzles section from the Sunday Times. Friday and Sunday papers each have a different cryptic by Caroline Andrews.

The Wall Street Journal (US)

Starting in January 2010, The Wall Street Journal publishes a variety cryptic by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon every four weeks.[6]