Matter crossword clue

The most likely answers for the crossword clue “Matter” are HEAD, MASS or COPY, with 4 letters. Below are 50 answers from 3 to 11 letters, best match first in each length, then what each top answer means and how to tell them apart.

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The best answers, explained

GOO 3 letters · noun

any thick, viscous matter

HEAD 4 letters · noun

the subject matter at issue “under the head of minor Roman poets”

THING 5 letters · noun

a vaguely specified concern “things are going well”

AFFAIR 6 letters · noun

a vaguely specified concern “it is none of your affair”

SUBJECT 7 letters · noun

some situation or event that is thought about “he had been thinking about the subject for several years”

QUESTION 8 letters · noun

the subject matter at issue “the question of disease merits serious discussion”

COMMITTEE 9 letters · noun

a special group delegated to consider some matter “a committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours”

COMMISSION 10 letters · noun

a special group delegated to consider some matter

ELIMINATION 11 letters · noun

the bodily process of discharging waste matter

Telling them apart

With 4 squares, HEAD, MASS, COPY, HOLE, MOLD and PUKE all fit. The third letter settles most of it: A → HEAD · S → MASS · P → COPY · L → HOLE, MOLD · K → PUKE. Fill in that crossing answer first.

With 5 squares, THING, ISSUE, COUNT, TOPIC, WEIGH and THEME all fit. The third letter settles most of it: I → THING, WEIGH · S → ISSUE · U → COUNT · P → TOPIC · E → THEME. Fill in that crossing answer first.

With 6 squares, AFFAIR, FORMAT, VACUUM, HOLLOW, SEWAGE and SLUDGE all fit. The third letter tells them all apart: F → AFFAIR · R → FORMAT · C → VACUUM · L → HOLLOW · W → SEWAGE · U → SLUDGE. Fill in that crossing answer first.

Other forms of this clue

Clues often use another form of the word, and the answer then takes the same form: “mattered” wants an answer that ends the same way.

What “matter” means

• noun: a vaguely specified concern (“several matters to attend to”)
• noun: some situation or event that is thought about (“it is a matter for the police”)
• noun: that which has mass and occupies space (“physicists study both the nature of matter and the forces which govern it”)
• noun: a problem (“is anything the matter?”)

A clue usually points at one of these senses, so the right answer is the one that matches the sense the puzzle means: check it against the crossing words.

About these answers

We match the clue against our own thesaurus and dictionary (Open English WordNet): words that mean the same as MATTER, and words whose definition is MATTER. We don't copy answers from newspaper puzzles, so a clue that leans on trivia or wordplay may need the crossing letters instead.