Clinical Data – February 2026 Update
Rather than making piecemeal changes to the lists, I now keep a spreadsheet of candidates for inclusion or removal which I then process periodically. A significant update has been done this month involving around fifty candidates (a few of which had their applications rejected).
Among the new arrivals are homophone indicators such as ‘on record’ and ‘in podcast’; containment/insertion indicators based on ‘snatch’, ‘defend’, ‘hoard’ and ‘invade’; anagram indicators such as ‘wound’, ‘spoils’, ‘mislaid’ and ‘sabotaged’; and reversal indicators such as ‘reverse’ (adjective), ‘in review’, ‘on the rebound’, ‘receiving a tip’ and ‘going uphill’.
Other changes rectified the accidental omission of indicators such as ‘abandoned by’ for departure/expulsion and ‘denied to’ for departure.
Rejections included ‘misheard’ as a homophone indicator (it doesn’t really make sense), ‘rim’ and ‘hem’ for first/last letter selection, and ‘fretted’ to indicate an anagram. These have all been added to the cryptic lexicon.
We also said goodbye to three entries: the first/last letter selection indicators ‘banks’ and ‘coasts’, and the anagram indicator ‘fiddling/fiddles’. I couldn’t see any justification for their continued inclusion, although they remain in the Lexicon.
As always, the change history on each page has been updated to reflect the latest updates.
I very much welcome suggestions from readers regarding additions, deletions or modifications to the lists. Anything that I’ve actively rejected for the main lists will be in the Lexicon with a ‘questionable’ marker, so something that can’t be found in there has probably not even received consideration. The only things that I don’t include are indicators which seem highly unlikely to appear in clues, such as ‘inarming’ for containment, or anagram indicators which seem to offer no significant advantage over those already listed, eg ‘tumultuous’. Even allowing for that, I have no doubt that there are still plenty of cryptic indicators missing, so if you see something that isn’t listed used in a puzzle, or you think of a word/phrase that you feel has claims for inclusion, do let me know.
