printer's devilry

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Formed by printer's devil +‎ -ry or blend of printer's devil +‎ devilry. As a crosswording term, coined by British crossword setter Alistair Ferguson Ritchie (Afrit).

Noun

printer's devilry (countable and uncountable, plural printer's devilries or printers' devilries)

  1. (crosswording) A type of crossword puzzle where solvers have to identify the string of letters, spelling out a word, that has been removed from a sentence.
    • 1973 January 1, New York Magazine, page 71:
      Remember: a Printer's Devilry clue need not make real sense in the “deviled” form offered as clue.
    • 1979, Games & Puzzles:
      I hope that devotees of our plain puzzles will forgive my offering prizes for Apex's Mrs Printer's Devilry Theme
    • 1989, The Listener:
      Numbered down clues are printer's devilry passages from which the light to be entered has been removed and the gap closed, leaving the remaining letters in their original order.
  2. A typographical error.
    • 1909, The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review and Oriental and Colonial Record:
      This was not a printer's devilry, for taffetas, sugar, mats are similarly misstated.
    • 2002, Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: The Man Who Made Ireland, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 445:
      The writer adopted the initials after his nom de plume, Aeon, was once shortened accidentally through printer's devilry.
    • 2002, Pratibha India:
      A word of caution! The Bengali as well as the translated texts are not free from Printer's devilry.

See also

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