Lesson 8 of 8
Deletions
Take a letter away.
A deletion clue gives you a word and tells you which letter to drop. Headless, beheaded and topless remove the first letter. Endless, tailless, cut short, almost and mostly remove the last. Heartless and gutted remove the middle.
The word you cut is nearly always clued rather than written, so there are two steps: find the word, then cut it. “Snake? Boat, mostly” means take BOAT, drop its end (BOA), and check it against the definition (a snake).
Deletions often hide inside bigger clues, as one step among several, so it pays to recognise the indicators on sight. Any word that means shorter, missing or incomplete should make you suspicious.
Words that give it away
- headless
- endless
- heartless
- topless
- tailless
- mostly
- almost
- beheaded
- cut short
- losing
Worked examples
Snake? Boat, mostly (3)
- 01“Mostly” is the indicator: keep most of what comes before it, dropping the last letter.
- 02BOAT without its end is BOA.
- 03“Snake” is the definition, so it sits at the start.
BOA
Story that's not fresh, without its opening (4)
- 01“Without its opening” is the indicator: drop the first letter of something.
- 02“Not fresh” is STALE, and without its opening it is TALE.
- 03“Story” defines TALE. The surface reads as a critic's complaint, which is the disguise.
TALE
Try one Bunny slope
Fruit from a spear that's lost its head (4)