Welcome to The Clue Clinic – where people interested in solving or setting cryptic crosswords come to learn, sharpen their skills, and get expert guidance from experienced setters.
If this is your first visit, we would recommend visiting the About This Site page to get some ideas about the areas of the site which may be of particular interest to you and the ways in which you can interact with Clinic staff and other readers.
What’s New
The PDF of the latest Gemelo puzzle is available at this link: Gemelo 45 Information about the latest changes to the site as of 22/08/26 can be found on the Clinic Refurbishment Status page The Forum is now available for discussion of all things crossword-related The PDF of the latest Azed puzzle is available at this link: Azed 2,782 The July Digest is now live, providing a short round-up of news and views from the Clinic
Latest Posts
Latest Comments
Latest Forum Topics/Posts
Hi Avtaar, and thanks for the suggestions. When it comes to ‘recline’, the transitive sense given by Chambers of ‘to…
Nope. not in my book. It caused me to raise an eyebrow, and I felt that it was a ‘worse’…
Hi Alex. I take your point. However, the good Doc mentioned some time ago that, when possible, Ch auto-pluralises any…
Hi Doc, Chambers gives the singular version of the answer to 34a as ‘(noun). ….collectively.’ I don’t see how…
Hi Doc i am wondering about “reclining” as a reversal indicator and “following up”,” tracking”, “dogs”, “hounds” as juxtaposition…
Yes, I doubt whether 4d will have caused a single eyebrow to have been raised among the solving community -…
I was pleased that the May poll results suggested no great desire for changes to current barred puzzle enumerations. (Other…
‘How many prepositions, conjunctions and adverbs can dance on the head of an invisicomma?’ We’re a bit closer to an…
“Your view” is widely confirmed ✅: “By definition in English syntax, a preposition cannot introduce a main clause because any…
Yes, it does. The cryptic reading ‘feels’ right because we are so familiar with the conjunctional construction where ‘after’ (in…
RE: Cruciverbiana
As a big fan of Michael Frayn's books, I enjoyed reading this description of his encounter with Azed (in a Guardian arti…
By QC05 , 13 hours ago
Cruciverbiana
Do you have any favourite crossword-related anecdotes, either gleaned from others or drawn from your own experience? I…
By Xotic , 3 days ago