Course 1
Letterplay
Anagrams, hidden words, reversals, and letter selectors — the building blocks of cryptic wordplay.
- Anagram
- Selector
- Reversal
Free cryptic courses
Learn cryptic clues
Three short courses take you from your first anagram to the stranger devices in Weirdplay. Track your progress and practice each cryptic crossword technique.
Course 2
Wordplay
Charades, containers, deletions, homophones, and the art of reading a clue twice.
- Charade
- Symbol
- Container
- Deletion
- Homophone
Course 3
Weirdplay
The advanced toolbox: double definitions, rebuses, homoglyphs, substitutions, and foreign words.
- Translation
- Homoglyph
- Double Definition
- Rebus
- Substitution
Quick reference
Anagram indicators
mixed, broken, confused, wild, shaken, scrambled, crazy, off, about, upset…
Container indicators
in, inside, holding, around, clutching, swallowing, enclosing, without…
Reversal indicators
back, backward, returning, reversed, overturned, up, rising, west…
Deletion indicators
headless, heartless, endless, beheaded, curtailed, nearly, almost…