Every clue tells you the answer twice.

What is a cryptic crossword?

A cryptic crossword is a puzzle where every clue points at its answer twice: a plain definition at one end, and a piece of wordplay (an anagram, a hidden word, a charade and so on) that spells the same answer a second way. Once you learn the handful of devices setters use, the clues stop being baffling and become a game you can win.

Try three clues

Three easy clues, one for each of the three devices you will meet most often. Work out what you can, then open the working to see exactly how the answer is built. No tricks in these ones.

1. Fruit concealed by a doctor angered (6)

   Show the working

   ORANGE · a hidden word

   Fruit is the definition. concealed by is the signal: the answer is already printed in the clue, spelled out in order, and all you have to do is spot it.

   Ignore the spaces and read straight through: doctorangered. There it is, running across the gap between two words. That is what makes a hidden word hard to see and obvious the moment you do, because your eye reads words and the answer is hiding in the letters.

   Nothing needs rearranging. Hidden words are the one device where the answer is literally in front of you.

2. Planet with a scrambled heart (5)

   Show the working

   EARTH · an anagram

   Planet is the definition. scrambled is the signal, and it is about as plain as anagram signals get: any word meaning mixed, muddled, broken or confused is telling you the letters next to it are in the wrong order.

   The letters it points at are HEART. Five of them, and the enumeration wants five, which is your confirmation you have the right fodder. Rearrange them and you get EARTH.

   Notice the surface reading, a planet with a scrambled heart, has nothing to do with the answer. Making the innocent reading and the instruction share the same words is the whole craft.

3. Vehicle for a pet? Floor covering (6)

   Show the working

   CARPET · a charade

   Floor covering is the definition. The rest builds the answer a piece at a time, which is what a charade does: take a synonym for each fragment and write them one after another.

   A vehicle is a CAR. A pet is a PET. Put them end to end and you have CAR + PET. The question mark is the setter admitting the surface is a joke, which is a convention worth learning: it usually means do not read this literally.

Got those? That is genuinely most of what a cryptic asks of you. The rest is thirteen more devices and a lot of practice, and today's grid is a good place to start.

Built to help you learn

Decryptic is designed for solvers who are still learning the ropes. Tap ? Hint on any clue and it names the type of wordplay in play, explains how it works, and reveals the answer only if you ask. Checking a word is always free. There's a single-clue focus mode for phones, and a growing archive of past puzzles to work through.

Learn to solve cryptic crosswords

New to cryptics, or want to sharpen up? Start here:

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Latest answers

Past puzzles, solved in full, with the wordplay behind every answer named clue by clue.

• #59 Arguments
• #58 Endings
• #57 Reflexes
• #56 Confusion
• #55 Smells

Updated 27 August 2026 · All 59 solutions