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. “Endless boat is a snake” means find a boat (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
Endless boat is a snake (3)
- 01“Endless” is the indicator: drop the last letter of what follows.
- 02“Boat” is simply BOAT, and without its end it is BOA.
- 03“A snake” is a BOA, so the definition is at the end.
BOA
Not fresh? Head off, it's a story (4)
- 01“Head off” is the indicator: drop the first letter.
- 02“Not fresh” is STALE, and with its head off it is TALE.
- 03“A story” defines TALE, and the question mark and punctuation are just there for the surface.
TALE
Try one Bunny slope
Spear losing its head is a fruit (4)