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 37 The PDF of the latest Azed puzzle is available at this link: Azed 2780 The May Digest is now live, providing a short round-up of news and views from the Clinic. For the latest information about the ongoing changes to the site, please see the Clinic’s Refurbishment Project Status page.
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Latest Comments
I think we now have next month’s poll question! Personally, I’m not keen on the practice of giving an unnecessary…
Hi Alex, and thanks for two very good questions. 1. If a word appears in English dictionaries only as part…
Is anybody else uncomfortable about “Polish” in the middle of a sentence being used for “polish”?
Fair point. I think it certainly bears witness to the fact that recent Azed puzzles have contained far more clues…
The thing that I found remarkable about this puzzle was the reappearance of STENO at 18A, with a clue very…
Hi. a couple of questions that I was wondering about. Can you use a word like ZOOT (on its own)…
A slight diversion… As the result of a misapprehension, Robert Browning coined the word ‘gadge’ (not his worst blunder -…
I suggest the (human) Ch authors may be of the view that noun ‘uncountable’ status does not require ‘special clarification’?…
Hi Tim Frankly, I don’t like it any more than you do. In most of the examples I could find…
Despite your analysis, I remain unconvinced by the plural in 27A. While the Chambers app finds it as a search…