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Crosswordese is the group of words frequently found in US crossword puzzles but seldom found in everyday conversation. The words are usually short, three to five letters, with letter combinations which crossword constructors find useful in the creation of crossword puzzles, such as words that start or end with vowels (or both), abbreviations consisting entirely of consonants, unusual ...
Taking this one stage further, the clue word can hint at the word or words to be abbreviated rather than giving the word itself. For example: "About" for C or CA (for "circa"), or RE. "Say" for EG, used to mean "for example". More obscure clue words of this variety include: "Model" for T, referring to the Model T.
An expression is labeled colloq. for "colloquial" in dictionaries when a different expression is preferred in formal usage, but this does not mean that the colloquial expression is necessarily slang or non-standard. Some colloquial language contains a great deal of slang, but some contains no slang at all.
The expression is thought to have originated with the Bloods, a gang that originated in Los Angeles, who wanted to avoid using "crazy" because it started with the letter "c," which they associated ...
An acrostic puzzle published in State Magazine in 1986. An acrostic is a type of word puzzle, related somewhat to crossword puzzles, that uses an acrostic form. It typically consists of two parts. The first part is a set of lettered clues, each of which has numbered blanks representing the letters of the answer.
This is a unit of fame, hype, or infamy, named for the American puzzle creator and editor, Will Shortz. The measure is the number of times one's name has appeared in The New York Times crossword puzzle as either a clue or solution. Arguably, this number should only be calculated for the Shortz era (1993–present).
A crossword (or crossword puzzle) is a word game consisting of a grid of black and white squares, into which solvers enter words or phrases ("entries") crossing each other horizontally ("across") and vertically ("down") according to a set of clues. Each white square is typically filled with one letter, while the black squares are used to ...
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).