Tuesday, 8 September 2026

Penny Drop

You are looking for one word. The clue is right there. The only question is when the penny drops.

Cheater, reformed, takes the class

(7)

Penny not dropping?

100 points on the board

Help is meant to be taken. The rungs teach you how the clue works, in order, and finishing one with help beats staring at it.

Stopping still shows you the answer and how it was built.

Points, best first · points

You are looking for one word. The clue is right there. The only question is when the penny drops.

Read it twice. One end of the clue is a plain definition.That is the whole con. Half a cryptic clue is a straight dictionary definition of the answer, and the other half spells the same word out the long way round. Two roads, one destination. The surface reading, the sentence that sounds like it means something, is a lie from start to finish.
Type your answer and send it.The boxes tell you the length, and where they break is where the answer breaks into two words. 4 goes, and a wrong one costs less than you think.
Stuck? Buy a rung.First rung tells you which end the definition is. Second, what the wordplay is up to. Third, the letter it starts with. They cost points and they are worth it: nobody ever learned this from a blank screen, and the whole point is that next week you buy one fewer.

Scored on points.

What the words mean

The penny drops:: the moment a clue stops being nonsense and turns obvious. What this game is named after and the only reason to play it
Cryptic clue:: a clue that describes its answer twice: once as a plain definition, and once as instructions for building the word out of letters. Both halves are in the same sentence
The definition:: the half of the clue that means the answer in the ordinary way. It sits at one end, the start or the finish, and never in the middle
The wordplay:: the other half, which spells the answer out rather than meaning it: an anagram, a hidden word, two bits stuck together and five more kinds
The parse:: the working, shown on the answer screen. It names the definition, names the kind of wordplay, and walks the letters into place. It is the reason to play this rather than look the answer up
The enumeration:: the number in brackets after a clue. (5) is a five-letter word and (3,4) is two words, one of three letters and one of four
The ladder:: three rungs of help, taken in order and each costing points: which end the definition is, what kind of wordplay it is, then the first letter