The Cryptic Lexicon
I has been asked on a couple of occasions recently whether the lists on this site are subject to my personal whims. The answer, in essence, is yes – I use the lists myself when setting puzzles, and therefore I only include cryptic elements which I believe are sound or which are so well established that they are universally accepted by solvers.
Although I’d like to think that my selection criteria are reasonably well-founded, the result isn’t necessarily helpful to solvers, who may come across all manner of cryptic ‘signposts’ which don’t fall into the above categories, hence the introduction of the Cryptic Lexicon. Based initially on the other lists on this site, with a few additions, the cryptic interpretations of each word or phrase which may be found in a clue are formatted as follows:
Normal print: these are mainstream entries in the other lists, categorized there as ‘Standard’
Grey: these are the more abstruse entries from those lists, categorized there as ‘Advanced’
Purple: these are all the others – if they’ve been seen in a published crossword, then whether I like them or not they will be allowed in with this styling
I would welcome thoughts on this list, and in particular suggestions for additions. If you’ve seen it in a puzzle and it’s not included here, let me know and I’ll add it. Yes, even ‘Gateshead’ for G. Comments will therefore remain enabled indefinitely on this page and the Cryptic Lexicon page itself. We start with 3,866 entries, and I’m sure that we can reach 5,000!
The page can be accessed from the Clinical Data main page, or directly here.
I have failed to offer a solution, instead pointing out a (perceived) problem. My apologies: I must do better.
I do note (belatedly) a wished-for alphabetising of the lists within “Clinical Data”; many thanks for that.
I find it difficult to distinguish the lighter grey print from the normal print and wonder if some other means of highlighting (deprecating) the “Advanced” entries could be employed.
Thanks for that.
Other than wanting to retain normal type for ‘standard’ entries, I am open to suggestions from yourself or other readers regarding how (i) ‘advanced’, ie dependent upon less common meanings found in Chambers (eg ‘wimples’ = ‘enfolds’) and (ii) ‘questionable’, ie regularly seen in cryptics but of doubtful soundness (eg ‘extremely’ = ‘the outer letters of’) indicators should be represented. One option would be to prefix these interpretations with, say, an asterisk or a dagger respectively, which would avoid any issues with font colour/weight. All thoughts welcomed.