Minute Cryptic 2026-07-23: This Clique Lacks

The surface reading is a decoy

The clue, This clique lacks a measure of intelligence, is built to sound like a plain complaint about a social group. That is the trap. In cryptic clues, the surface sentence is there to misdirect, while the real job is to locate the definition, the indicator, and the fodder.

Here, This is the definition. The clue is self-referential, so the answer is a word that can point back to the clue itself. That is the first big pivot: instead of reading the sentence as commentary about a clique, you read it as a coded instruction about the clue.

Cracking the cryptic logic

1. Identify the definition

The definition is This. In cryptic grammar, a definition can sit at either end, and self-referential clues often use a tiny, seemingly harmless word like that to point to the answer.

2. Spot the indicator

The word lacks is the indicator. In cryptic clue language, “lacks” signals deletion or subtraction. It tells you that one piece of fodder is going to be removed from, or judged against, another piece of fodder.

That is why the clue does not describe a direct synonym. It is giving a mechanical instruction: take the available material and strip something away.

3. Read the fodder

The fodder is clique and a measure of intelligence. The puzzle is asking you to think about how those two parts interact. The phrase “a measure of intelligence” points toward a short, common synonym. Once you treat that phrase as a unit of letter material, the manipulation becomes visible.

4. Apply the secret code

Now the code starts to make sense. A “clique” is a small exclusive group, and the clue says it “lacks” a measure of intelligence. That is cryptic shorthand for taking the group word and removing the intelligence marker from it, leaving a result that matches the self-referential definition.

The answer is CLUE. The final word works because it is exactly what the definition asks for: This in the sense of “this clue.” The surface seems to talk about a clique missing intelligence, but the cryptic reading turns the sentence into a miniature assembly instruction that resolves into the word CLUE.

Why the surface reading works so well

The brilliance of the surface is that it sounds natural and slightly insulting, which keeps you from noticing the machinery underneath. Your brain initially reads This clique lacks a measure of intelligence as a social observation, not as a wordplay recipe.

That misdirection is deliberate. The clue hides its structure inside an everyday sentence, then uses lacks to trigger a deletion-style operation. Once you recognize that move, the whole clue shifts from prose to code.

The solver’s takeaway

When a cryptic clue feels like a normal sentence, ask three questions: where is the definition, what word tells me how to manipulate letters, and what pieces of text are being used as fodder? In this puzzle, the answers are This, lacks, and the paired fodder phrases. Put together, they unlock the hidden instruction and reveal the answer cleanly.

That is the secret-code moment: the clue stops being a sentence and becomes a mechanism.