Word.ws English Dictionary

cryptic

/ˈkɹɪptɪk/

cryptic adjective: having hidden (unapparent) meaning.

Adjective

cryptic (comparative more cryptic, superlative most cryptic)

  1. Having hidden (unapparent) meaning.
  2. Mystified or of an obscure nature; not easy to perceive.
    • I think the Original of this conceit might be, That the Students of Nature, conſcious to her more cryptick wayes of working, reſolve many ſtrange effects into the nearer efficiency of ſecond cauſes[…]1665, Joseph Glanvill, “An Apology for Philosophy”, in Scepsis Scientifica: Or, Confest Ignorance, the way to Science, London: E. Cotes, page 182
    • Even the putatively innocuous whimsical shapes and designs of cakes and pastry, notably in Central Europe, retain to this day the phallic concept, the cryptic induration of the aphrodisiac function.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page iii
  3. Involving use of a code or cipher.
  4. (crosswording) Of a crossword puzzle, or a clue in such a puzzle, using, in addition to definitions, wordplay such as anagrams, homophones and hidden words to indicate solutions.
  5. Well camouflaged; having good camouflage.
    • Lonomia caterpillars are extremely cryptic.
  6. Serving as camouflage.
    • cryptic colouring
    • Episematic characters are far less common than aposematic, and these than cryptic; although, as regards the latter comparison, the opposite impression is generally produced from the fact that concealment is so successfully attained.1911, “Colours of Animals”, in The Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition, volume V, page 732
  7. (not comparable) Apparently identical, but actually genetically distinct.
    • cryptic species
  8. Living in a cavity or small cave.
    • Much of the Permian Capitan reef was strongly differentiated into open surface and cryptic communities.1999, Rachel Wood, Reef Evolution, page 95
    Synonyms:
    cryptozoic

Noun

cryptic (plural cryptics)

  1. (informal) A cryptic crossword puzzle.
    • He settled down to the cryptic in the Independent. He loved his crossword. It kept him mentally active, just as gossip did his wife.1996, Mary McCarthy, Remember Me, page 85
    • This writer has been solving cryptics for 40 years and can usually crack Araucaria, though it might take a couple of days.2009 February 1, Bill Taylor, “Building a crossword”, in Toronto Star

Proper noun capitalized: Cryptic

the Cryptic

  1. An epoch from 4567 to 4150 million years ago, a subdivision of the Prenectarian.

cryptic meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

cryptic in Hindi

cryptic; mysterious
गुप्त gupt

cryptic in Tamil

பூடகமான, புலனாகாத, புதிரான, மறை பொருளான, புதைந்த, மறைந்த

cryptic in Urdu

cryptic; mysterious
گپت gupt

cryptic in Bengali

রহস্যময়, দুর্বোধ্য
More languagesFewer languages
cryptic in Malayalam
ഗൂഢാർത്ഥമായ, നിഗൂഢതയുള്ള, ദുർഗ്രഹ, ദുരൂഹമായ
cryptic in Kannada
ಗುಟ್ಟಿನ, ಗುಂಬದ
cryptic in Punjabi
ਕ੍ਰਿਪਟਿਕ, ਕਰਿਪਟਿਕ
cryptic in Gujarati
ક્રિપ્ટિક, ક્રિપ્ટીક
cryptic in Odia
କ୍ରିପ୍ଟିକ୍
cryptic in Arabic
مُبْهَم mubham

Examples of cryptic in a sentence

  • Her dedication for the book was only a cryptic "Once again, for T".
  • We’ve seen him flirt with the dot-connectors by throwing out something cryptic for the internet to decode.
  • Even with the most knowing interpreter, his hyperclever, verbose musings remain cryptic.

All 40 example sentences with cryptic

Synonyms of cryptic

Forms of cryptic

Adjective
comparativemore cryptic
superlativemost cryptic
alternative form (obsolete)cryptick
Noun
pluralcryptics

Origin of cryptic

From Late Latin crypticus, from Ancient Greek κρυπτικός (kruptikós), from κρυπτός (kruptós, “hidden”), from κρύπτω (krúptō, “to hide”). Doublet of kryptic.

Words formed from cryptic

Phrases with cryptic

Words that rhyme with cryptic

21 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about cryptic

What does cryptic mean?
Cryptic means having hidden (unapparent) meaning.
What is cryptic in Hindi?
Cryptic in Hindi is गुप्त (gupt). See Cryptic meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is cryptic?
Cryptic can be an adjective, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce cryptic?
Cryptic is pronounced /ˈkɹɪptɪk/.

Words near cryptic in the dictionary

  1. crypteroniaceous
  2. cryptesthesia
  3. cryptesthetic
  4. cryptex
  5. cryptexes
  6. cryptic
  7. cryptic crossword
  8. cryptic crosswords
  9. cryptic definition
  10. cryptic definitions
  11. cryptic ovulation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cryptic (page history and authors); Cryptic (page history and authors); गुप्त (Hindi) (page history and authors); cryptic (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); گپت (Urdu) (page history and authors); Cryptic (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cryptic (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); cryptic (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cryptic (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cryptic (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cryptic (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cryptic.wav.

Cite this entry: “cryptic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cryptic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.