(n.) A composition, usually in verse, in which the first or the last letters of the lines, or certain other letters, taken in order, form a name, word, phrase, or motto.
(n.) A Hebrew poem in which the lines or stanzas begin with the letters of the alphabet in regular order (as Psalm cxix.). See Abecedarian.
(n.) Alt. of Acrostical
Example Sentences:
(1) Mr Elton's flourishing of "Augusta" is made the more repellent by Mrs Elton's mock-coy revelation that he wrote an acrostic on her name while courting her in Bath.
(2) With these factors in mind, health educators may set them out as an acrostic, based on the 1st letters of a slogan which could be taught to attendants: A Child Needs Personal Love With Which To Enjoy Protein.
(3) Top Gear's James May was once sacked by Autocar for working an acrostic (a message spelled out in the initial letters of each line) into a special supplement, which explained how editing the pull-out was a "real pain in the arse".
(4) Campaign strategies this time around have included an acrostic poem attacking a local Fairfax Regional paper, the Mandurah Mail, for being “Malicious Asshole Nutcases Dickheads” (it goes on, but we won’t).
Crossword
Definition:
Example Sentences:
(1) He would do the Telegraph crossword and, to be fair, would make intelligent conversation but he was a bit racist.
(2) Fittingly, I won this in a crossword competition in 2003.
(3) The solution would appear (sometimes the novel felt like a vast crossword puzzle) through a combination of experiment, meditation and lateral thought: I had to step firmly away from the French and face a contrary direction – another track entirely.
(4) For my 80th birthday last year, my family commissioned a killer-grade personal crossword – my life in a crossword.
(5) I am told that actors and authors and scientists know that they have it made when their names are required as solutions in a Times crossword puzzle.
(6) "And then it's like doing a really difficult crossword.
(7) Blank e blank e blank e blank t. I do crosswords all the time, that's how I learned English.
(8) There's one clue left on the Times crossword and he can't get it.
(9) That a celebrity might command a quarter of a page photo is not particularly unusual – but this was page 46 and I'd already whizzed over the business pages and the TV listings and done the crossword.
(10) Learned, erudite, eloquent, witty and self-effacing about his sharp-minded crossword-setting skill – he was all of those and more.
(11) The Sunday crossword puzzle had the following cue for 4 down: "Places for day-care" (spelled, with the purist's uncertainty, with a hyphen).
(12) Illustration by David Gibson The Guardian has lost a terrific crossword setter but, with the passing of John Graham, Somersham has lost a gentleman who was truly a gentle man ( Araucaria, Obituaries , 27 November).
(13) He was very clever and also enormously competent; he could make things, fix things, solve problems, name trees and plants and insects and birds, grow vegetables, sing in tune, do cryptic crosswords, read maps, sail boats, tie knots, paint and draw, play chess.
(14) This crossword puzzle serves as a motivational tool for staff and is indicative of the broad knowledge base that transplant nurses must possess.
(15) Once, I took my parents to Cornwall for a break and was doing the Guardian crossword with my dad.
(16) At the Statesman, Wheen didn't just proof the crossword.
(17) Nicholas Edward Gough Swindon, Wiltshire • I will always remember the frisson of excitement, on turning to the crossword, to find the name of Araucaria as the compiler, and especially so if it were a themed or alphabetical challenge.
(18) She traces the wordplay back to her father, Adrian Bell, a farmer turned local newspaper columnist, and the first compiler of the Times cryptic crossword.
(19) To sports fans Qatar's name has become more than a crossword curiosity, most famous as host of the 2022 World Cup, to Londoners as the money behind the Shard skyscraper, and to cash-strapped governments as the home of a sovereign wealth fund with a voracious appetite for diverse global investments.
(20) Her listed interests include learning to play the saxophone, supporting Manchester United, and doing cryptic crosswords.