Deletion Indicator Words
Deletion indicators tell you to drop a letter or letters from a word.
You remove part of a word — its head, tail, heart, or ends — before using what remains. Deletions use the imagery of loss, cutting, or being incomplete.
“Entrepreneur losing male company (8)”
Answer: BUSINESS
Definition: "company". "Entrepreneur" gives a word for a commercial type: BUSINESSMAN. "losing male" tells you to drop MAN (a male) from the end. BUSINESSMAN minus MAN leaves BUSINESS.
All deletion indicators
109 words. Filter by theme or subtlety, or tap a word to see its full entry.
109 words
- abbreviate
- abridge
- after the first
- almost
- bare
- behead
- borderless
- boundless
- brief
- briefly
- centreless
- clip
- clipped at both ends
- core
- coreless
- crop
- curtail
- cut short
- cut the head off
- decapitate
- disembowel
- dishearten
- dock
- dropped initially
- dropping the end
- empty
- endless
- endlessly
- eviscerate
- expose
- failing to finish
- failing to start
- falling short
- first gone
- first off
- from the second
- gut
- gutless
- has no head
- head off
- heading off
- headless
- heads off
- heartless
- hollow
- hollowed out
- ignoring the lead
- incomplete
- incompletely
- lacking the end
- lacking the first
- largely
- leaderless
- limitless
- lop
- losing both ends
- losing heart
- losing its head
- losing its heart
- losing the edges
- losing the end
- losing the first
- losing the last
- losing the lead
- missing its centre
- missing the end
- missing the first
- missing the middle
- mostly
- naked
- nearly
- no starter
- not completely
- not entirely
- not initially
- not quite
- not starting
- open
- peel
- premature
- prematurely
- prune
- reduce
- scooped out
- shell
- short
- shortly
- skin
- skipping the start
- strip
- topless
- trim
- trimmed at both ends
- truncate
- unclothed
- uncover
- undress
- unfinished
- unveil
- unwrap
- vacuous
- void
- without a head
- without a heart
- without end
- without extremes
- without heart
- without the extremities
- without the last
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