Read crossword clue

The most likely answers for the crossword clue “Read” are STUDY, LEARN or PLACE, with 5 letters. Below are 21 answers from 3 to 10 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

SAY 3 letters · verb

have or contain a certain wording or form “What does the law say?”

SHOW 4 letters · verb

indicate a certain reading; of gauges and instruments “The thermometer showed thirteen degrees below zero”

STUDY 5 letters · verb

be a student of a certain subject

RECORD 6 letters · verb

indicate a certain reading; of gauges and instruments

REGISTER 8 letters · verb

indicate a certain reading; of gauges and instruments

TRANSLATE 9 letters · verb

make sense of a language

UNDERSTAND 10 letters · verb

make sense of a language “She understands French”

Telling them apart

With 4 squares, SHOW, SCAN, CALL and SKIM all fit. The second letter tells them all apart: H → SHOW · C → SCAN · A → CALL · K → SKIM. Fill in that crossing answer first.

With 5 squares, STUDY, LEARN, PLACE, PROOF and TRACE all fit. The first letter settles most of it: S → STUDY · L → LEARN · P → PLACE, PROOF · T → TRACE. Fill in that crossing answer first.

With 8 squares, REGISTER, LITERACY, LITERATE, DECIPHER and DYSLEXIA all fit. The third letter settles most of it: G → REGISTER · T → LITERACY, LITERATE · C → DECIPHER · S → DYSLEXIA. 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: “readded” wants an answer that ends the same way.

What “read” means

• verb: interpret something that is written or printed (“read the advertisement”)
• verb: have or contain a certain wording or form (“The passage reads as follows”)
• verb: look at, interpret, and say out loud something that is written or printed (“The King will read the proclamation at noon”)
• verb: obtain data from magnetic tapes or other digital sources (“This dictionary can be read by the computer”)

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 READ, and words whose definition is READ. We don't copy answers from newspaper puzzles, so a clue that leans on trivia or wordplay may need the crossing letters instead.