Decrypting the Cryptic #3: Containers

“I contain multitudes,” said Walt Whitman, who was talking about himself but could also have been describing certain cryptic clues. In this third Decrypting the Cryptic post, we’re talking about containers, a commonly used cluing tactic.

In a container clue, the wordplay portion of the clue indicates one or more letters or words that are to be “contained,” or inserted into, another word. So, unlike charades, in which the clued shorter words appear one after the other, in a container clue, one or more of the words will appear inside another. Before we even get into what this looks like in a clue, let’s just look at a couple of examples:

• The word STARLING can be broken up into the word TAR inside the word SLING: S(TAR)LING
• The word SPATE is the letter P contained by the word SATE: S(P)ATE

Container clues will always have some kind of word that indicates that you’re to put one word inside of the other. (Without such an indicator, you’d have a charades clue instead, since the default assumption is that the component words are being clued in the order they appear.) These indicator words can include, but are not limited to:

• Words related to eating or consumption: “eat,” “swallow,” “gobble up,” “consume”
• Synonyms for “take”: “grab,” “get,” “ingest”
• Certain prepositions: “in,” “inside,” “with,” “around,” “outside”
  • When you see a preposition, pay attention! “XY in AB” would indicate “AXYB,” whereas “XY around AB” would indicate “XABY”
• Words about surrounding: “encasing,” “encircling,” “girding”

Now that you have an idea of what might make you think “container!” when you look at a clue, let’s try some examples.

Example 1: High fashion is out in preserve (7) (Clue credit: Me, May 21)

The answer is COUTURE, or “High fashion,” which is also the word OUT (given directly in the clue) contained by the word CURE (“preserve,” as in the cured-meat sense). The word “in” serves as the indicator that you’re to contain one word inside the other — and, as you can see, the order is important. The fact that I said “out in preserve” rather than “preserve in out” was not just because the latter doesn’t make any surface sense. It’s to indicate that OUT goes into CURE, not the other way around.

Example 2: Oscar winner Blanchett gets a sign to adjust (9) (Clue credit: Also me, May 19; guess I was really into containers that week!)

The answer is CALIBRATE (“to adjust”). Break that up, and you get the word LIBRA (“a sign” — of the zodiac) going into CATE (“Oscar winner Blanchett”). The word “gets” serves as the indicator that a container is involved — and again, the order of the words shows that it’s CATE that gets LIBRA inside, rather than trying to put CATE into LIBRA.

Example 3: Hill worker gets little time to make something more palatable (7)

The answer is SWEETEN (“make something more palatable”). In this case it’s more than one word being contained: SEN, an abbreviation for Senator, or a “Hill worker”, is the word on the outside, and it is “getting,” or containing, the word WEE (“little”) and the letter T, a common abbreviation for “time.”

That’s how containers work. Feel free to ask questions or discuss in the comments!

And don’t forget to check out #crypticclueaday on Twitter. I post a new clue each day using that hashtag (other constructors have been adding their own as well), and every week on #explanationfriday I give the solutions and a brief explanation of how to derive them. These clues are a great way to hone your cryptic solving skills and build your confidence up to solving a full puzzle.