CROSSWORDESE

n.

Words that are typcially found only in crossword puzzle answers.

The task will be much easier if you have worked enough puzzles yourself to be familiar with "crosswordese," words that crop up frequently in puzzles but are otherwise pretty useless. A few examples of crosswordese, all beginning with the letter "a," are alate (winged), anile (old womanish), aril (seed covering), arara (a cockatoo), and aval (grandparental).

—George Rose Smit, "Creating crosswords," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 8, 1991

Make every effort to keep "crosswordese" down to a minimum.Such words as anoa, asse, ipil, gher, tola and other oddities appear in puzzles only because the constructor and the editor found it impossible to eliminate them.

—Eugene T. Maleska. "A Pleasure in Words," Fireside, January 1, 1981 (approx)

Christianese

enigmatology

menckenese

six down

Sports and Recreation

Language (General)