Puzzle Glossary

Puzzles come with a vocabulary of their own that nobody ever explains — you are expected to have absorbed it. Here is the whole list: 25 terms, each defined in a sentence below and explained in full on its own page.

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• Across and down The two directions a crossword answer runs: across a row, or down a column.
• Acrostic A piece of writing whose first letters, read down the lines, spell out a word or message.
• Anagram A word or phrase made by rearranging all the letters of another, using every letter exactly once.
• Anagram indicator The word in a cryptic clue that signals the letters beside it should be rearranged.
• Charade (cryptic crossword) A cryptic device that builds the answer by writing two or more shorter clued pieces one after another.
• Criss-cross puzzle A crossword-shaped grid with no clues: you are given the words and must work out where each fits.
• Cryptic crossword clue A clue with two routes to the same answer: a straight definition and a piece of wordplay.
• Cryptogram A short text encrypted by swapping every letter for another letter, solved by working out the swap.
• Double acrostic A puzzle whose clued answers spell one message down their first letters and a second down their last.
• Fill-in puzzle A crossword grid that comes with the answers instead of the clues, leaving you to place them.
• Hidden word clue A cryptic clue whose answer is spelled out in plain sight inside the clue's own text.
• Homophone clue A cryptic clue where the answer sounds like another word, flagged by a listening indicator.
• Kakuro A crossword shape filled with digits, where each run must add up to its clue and never repeat a digit.
• Killer sudoku Sudoku with no starting digits, where dotted cages each carry a total their cells must add up to.
• Large print puzzle A puzzle typeset at a bigger size and heavier weight throughout, so it reads comfortably with reduced vision.
• Logic grid puzzle Match items across several sets using clues, with a grid to track what each clue rules out.
• Nonogram A grid where run-length numbers on each row and column tell you which squares to fill, revealing a picture.
• Palindrome A word, phrase or sequence that reads the same forwards and backwards.
• Pangram A sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once.
• Rebus A puzzle that spells a phrase using pictures, letters and their arrangement on the page.
• Seed word The word a puzzle is built around — placed first, with everything else fitted to it.
• Sudoku Fill a 9×9 grid so every row, column and 3×3 box holds each digit from 1 to 9 exactly once.
• Theme entry One of a crossword's long answers that share a hidden idea the whole grid is built around.
• Word ladder Turn one word into another by changing a single letter at a time, every step a real word.
• Word search A letter grid hiding a list of words, each running in an unbroken straight line.

Where to use them

Every one of these words describes something you can go and do. The games index lists the daily puzzles, the tools build printable puzzles from your own words, large print puzzles covers the big-type end, and the printable pack collects the day's sheets with their answers.