Patois Crossword

Big · Medium · No. 50:00

Patois Crossword: Big · Medium · No. 5

A medium big Patois crossword with 24 clues. Every answer is a real Jamaican Patois word from the dictionary, and each links to its entry when you finish. Medium: A wider vocabulary. Clues are the meaning, and you can have wrong letters marked but never shown the answer.

Across

  1. 1 The golden, spiced dish (5)
  2. 4 The ____ or preacher who leads a church congregation (6)
  3. 5 To throw, toss, or hurl — often carelessly or forcefully (5)
  4. 8 A deep-red drink brewed from the dried calyces (6)
  5. 10 The Jamaican (calabaza) ____ (7)
  6. 12 Jamaica's soca-driven street festival (8)
  7. 14 From — a run-together of '____' (5)
  8. 16 Coarse burlap / sacking — the rough brown jute cloth used for the '____ bag' (6)
  9. 18 A sweet or candy (7)
  10. 20 The smallest and highest-pitched of the three sacred Nyabinghi hand drums — also called the 'repeater' (5)
  11. 21 An exclamation of dismissal, mild annoyance, impatience, or disbelief (3)
  12. 22 Praises given to Jah (4)

Down

  1. 2 A person of high standing and respect — a top-____, important figure (6)
  2. 3 A call for attention or a casual greeting — 'hey!', '____!', 'listen up' (3)
  3. 4 A traditional rotating savings scheme in which a group of people each pay a fixed sum (7)
  4. 6 The Patois pronunciation of '____', with the 'w' softened to an 'oo' sound (5)
  5. 7 A very small sum of money (7)
  6. 9 To dedicate — reworked in Rastafari Iyaric so the 'dead' sound in 'dedi-cate' is replaced with 'liv' (8)
  7. 11 To show off and flaunt wealth, style, or success (5)
  8. 13 A rat — the larger rodent that gets into the roof, the field, and the storeroom (5)
  9. 15 A wind instrument made from a cow's horn (5)
  10. 16 Greedy, grasping, and excessively covetous (6)
  11. 17 Dried, hulled corn kernels, boiled soft and cooked into '____ porridge' (6)
  12. 19 A multi-purpose question and linking word — 'where', 'what', or the relative 'that/which/who' (3)

Where the words come from

Every answer is an entry in the Patois dictionary. This puzzle draws on: Actions & Verbs, Animals, Plants & Nature, Culture, Heritage & History, Dance, Party & Celebration, Descriptions & Emotions, Food & Drink, Grammar & Function Words, Greetings & Conversation, Money, Work & Business, Music, Reggae & Dancehall, People & Relationships, Rastafari & Iyaric. When you finish, each answer shows its meaning, its pronunciation and an example sentence.

The number in brackets after a clue is the length of the answer, and (3,5) means two words of three and five letters, typed with no space. Patois has no single spelling, so if you type another spelling the dictionary records, it counts.

More to play

Back to all Patois crosswords, try the daily word game Guess Di Word, or take a Patois quiz. You can print this puzzle from your browser's print menu.