Word.ws English Dictionary

indirect anagram

indirect anagram noun: a cryptic device, forbidden in most publications, in which the word to be anagrammed is not present in the wordplay.

Noun

indirect anagram (plural indirect anagrams)

  1. (crosswording) A cryptic device, forbidden in most publications, in which the word to be anagrammed is not present in the wordplay.
    • ... the importance of sound clues: how they must be syntactically correct and how we must shun the indirect anagram and other unfair devices.1977, Games & Puzzles
    • Most setters do try to avoid indirect anagrams, though.2012 June 13, Denise Sutherland, Solving Cryptic Crosswords For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 105

Forms of indirect anagram

pluralindirect anagrams

Questions about indirect anagram

What does indirect anagram mean?
Indirect anagram means a cryptic device, forbidden in most publications, in which the word to be anagrammed is not present in the wordplay.
What part of speech is indirect anagram?
Indirect anagram is a noun.
What is the plural of indirect anagram?
The plural of indirect anagram is indirect anagrams.

Words near indirect anagram in the dictionary

  1. indios
  2. indioside
  3. Indira
  4. Indira Nagar
  5. indirect
  6. indirect anagram
  7. indirect anagrams
  8. indirect cost
  9. indirect costs
  10. indirect democracy
  11. indirect discourse

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: indirect anagram (page history and authors). 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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