We shall look at DELETIONS today. In this category of clues, we need to remove a part of the clue to get the answer. This erasure can happen at the front of a word, at the back, or in the middle. The setter will use indicators such as ‘head off’, ‘shortly’, ‘not starting’, ‘endless’, ‘tailless’, ‘almost’, ‘not finishing’, ‘limitless’, ‘ignoring’ and so on. Note that ‘endless’ and ‘limitless’ possibly mean that you should delete letters at both ends of the word. In some cases, when we need to delete more than a letter, the setter will indicate this with a cryptic suggestion.
Let us understand this category with a few examples:
Draw level shortly (3)
This is a 3-letter answer that means ‘draw’. And the answer can also come from taking a 4-letter word that means ‘level’ and ‘shortly’ tells us to remove the last letter. And so we get TIER – R = TIE. Note that ‘draw’ here means tie, as in a game.
Head off crazy host (4)
The answer is a 4-letter word that means host. You also get the answer by looking for a 5-letter words that means crazy and removing the 1st letter. And so we have BARMY – B = ARMY. (This is an archaic use of Host. Archaisms aren’t rare in Cryptics, so keep an eye out for them)
Wild beast and tailless dog getting on (8)
This is a combination of a Charade and a Deletion. We get the answer by BOAR (wild beast) + DINGO (dog) – O = BOARDING
Here are a few DELETION type clues to exercise your grey matter:
Tailless bird having to move around a desert (6)
Hint: the answer is the name of a desert
Vegetable piece shortly cut (7)
Hint: the answer is the name of a vegetable
Rudely reject limitless free lentils maybe? (7)
Hint: the answer means ‘rudely reject’
Is grumpy about shows not starting (7)
Hint: the answer means ‘is grumpy’
I realize now that these 4 clues were pretty difficult. My apologies. Here’s some help:
1) Tailless bird having to move around a desert (6)
The answer looks like MO – – VE. The missing two letters inside are from a three letter word that’s the name of a bird.
2) Vegetable piece shortly cut (7)
The answer is the name of a vegetable. It’s a charade of two parts. The first part is a word that means piece minus its last letter. The second part is SNIP.
3) Rudely reject limitless free lentils maybe? (7)
The answer means rudely reject. It looks like RE (the word free without its two ends) + a 5 letter word that is a kind of lentils.
4) Is grumpy about shows not starting (7)
The answer is 7 letters long and it means ‘is grumpy’. Think of an 8 letter word that means ‘shows’ and remove the first letter to get the answer.
In the next comment, you can find all 4 answers..
The answers are:
1) MO-JA(Y)-VE = MOJAVE (a desert in the United States)
2) PAR(T)+SNIP = PARSNIP
3) (F)RE(E)+PULSE = REPULSE
4) (P)RESENTS = RESENTS