Dictionary

printer's devilry en · NOUN

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).

Meanings

1. (countable, qualifier:crosswording, uncountable) 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.
   • Remember: a Printer's Devilry clue need not make real sense in the “deviled” form offered as clue. 1973 January 1, New York Magazine, page 71:
   • I hope that devotees of our plain puzzles will forgive my offering prizes for Apex's Mrs Printer's Devilry Theme 1979, Games & Puzzles:
   • 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. 1989, The Listener:
2. (countable, uncountable) A typographical error.
   • This was not a printer's devilry, for taffetas, sugar, mats are similarly misstated. 1909, The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review and Oriental and Colonial Record:
   • A word of caution! The Bengali as well as the translated texts are not free from Printer's devilry. 2002, Pratibha India:
   • The writer adopted the initials after his nom de plume, Aeon, was once shortened accidentally through printer's devilry. 2002, Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: The Man Who Made Ireland, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 445:

Forms

Relateds

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