Cryptic clues — 3 October 2026

Answers & explanations

1. RETAKE (6)

   School corridor after the keys go missing. Some of lifts RETAKE from caretaker. Recapture is the retake sense — seize again — and mop buckets sell the hide as janitor weather rather than a labelled strip.

2. FEMALE (6)

   Forge aside when the anvil cools. Iron is FE; men MALE — FEMALE. Woman is the plain sense. Sparks and wet leather sell the join as workshop banter, parts left in order.

3. COVER (5)

   Blanket is the definition. Taking the first letter of each word in the clue gives COVER.

4. STRUCK (6)

   Local-news crash report. Mangled trucks supply STRUCK; affected means hit or stricken. Surface-first reading is almost too plausible, which is the point: solvers may hunt a container before spotting the six-letter mix.

5. PADRE (5)

   Parish gossip on the face of it: the shop, a drama, the choir wrapping up. Closing letters of shop drama and choir close, flagged by 'finally', spell PADRE. Father is the straight definition — the priest — while the church-hall chatter hides the last-letter trail.

6. EXOTIC (6)

   Bedroom heat turns strange. Foreign means exotic. Erotic with a change swaps R for X, giving EXOTIC.

7. SPRITE (6)

   Folklore shelf when the dust still lifts. Right maps to R; in plants it inside malice (SPITE) — SP(R)ITE. Goblin is the sprite sense, a tricky spirit. Soft cloth and a leaning ladder sell the container as attic aside rather than a fairy taxonomy.

8. DERAIL (6)

   DERAIL answers "jump", and it comes straight out of detail once T is swapped for R. Detail reads innocently in the sentence; the letter is the only thing that moves.

9. AXES (4)

   Forest track when the blades still flash. Choppers are axes as tools; fell trees is to axe. Soft needles and a lukewarm flask sell plural tool and verb as trail aside.

10. LAWN (4)

    Clubhouse banter when the groundsman points at the chalked baseline. Statute yields LAW and north the N, so LAWN. Tennis is the grass-court sense, not a legal brief. Mown stripes and a distant umpire's chair dress a law-plus-compass charade as match-day chat.