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Still brilliantly worked out, lovely clue too.

no skill i'm afraid AJT.

i put the word 'music' into,

http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml

then filtered the results by putting 18 Question marks into where it says, "Filter by this wildcard pattern:" at the bottom.(replace the asterix).

I found the difficult bit deciding whether the answer was HEMIDEMISEMIQUAVER or SEMIDEMISEMIQUAVER (which both mean the same thing) until I tumbled to the very clever wordplay. The best clue I have seen for some time!

is there such a word as SEMIDEMISEMIQUAVER?

Oh, Trevor - I wish you hadn't spoilt my illusion! - Still skill finding it, though

Respect, Trevor!

I saw it was an 18 letter word and gave up at that point. I thought someone would ask on here, sooner or later.
R

SEMIDEMISEMIQUAVER is in Chambers Dictionary as "half a demisemiquaver" which is the same definition (but, interestingly, not word for word!) that is given in the same dictionary for HEMIDEMISEMIQUAVER. Where would we have been without the cyptic clue?

Thank you Rosalind,
where does the clue come from?

AJT - i was very tempted not to tell but hey! i like to think that i do have some genuine good moments. :-)

Brilliant trevor!
I started the Times cryptic 964 about 10 mins. ago. Managed to find only 6, then spotted the 18-letter word. Having seen your answer earlier today, I am so grateful for saving me hours of head-scratching.

Well I've typed the word "music" into the box, hit the "Find words" button then the page refreshes and I get a list of words which start thus:
musical
play
swing
jazz
score

so I scrolled to the bottom of the page

and in the little box I deleted the asterisk and entered 18 question marks.

Then I hit the "go" button, the page refreshed and in the box at the top I got

??????????????????:music

and a whole pile more words like this


1. musical arrangement
2. gilbert and sullivan
3. hemidemisemiquaver
4. musical performance
5. alexander balanescu
6. alexander zemlinsky


If I had a rope, I'd hang myself!!!