Varsity’s Cryptic Crossword: an explainer
Spotted our Cryptic Crossword in print? Let Pitt* walk you through the solutions

Nearly* all cryptic crossword clues have the same structure: the definition, the wordplay and nothing else.
The definition will be one or two words, or perhaps a phrase, at the beginning or end of the clue (i.e. not in the middle). Most wordplay is only of a few types: anagrams, concatenation, reversal, placement within, homophones, hidden words and puns. Often with concatenation, reversal and placement within, words in the clue are abbreviated either to a short synonym or an abbreviation.
Most abbreviations come from some context in the real world (e.g. quiet can be abbreviated to ‘p’, as in the musical direction), however some common words don’t seem to have a context (e.g. good can be abbreviated to ‘g’; I assume it’s because g is the initial letter but I’m unaware of the context)
*The exceptions are and lit. clues and double definitions. And lit. is where the whole clue is the definition and the wordplay. An example is “I’m a leader of Muslims! (4) ” (IMAM). They are often denoted by an exclamation mark. They’re quite rare, and none have appeared in this crossword. Double definitions on the other hand will appear at least once in most cryptics, but like other clues, the surface meaning will try to deceive e.g. “Sacks reserves (4) ” (BAGS). I particularly like this one because in the surface meaning sacks is the verb and reserves is the noun, but for their definitions, it’s the other way round.
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