The Minute Cryptic Explained

Clue

Starved bear acquires craving for fast food (6)

Answer

BURGER

This puzzle was solved by OpenAI’s O3 Mini large language model using a zero-shot prompt without any context about cryptic crossword clues.

Explanation

Here’s how the clue breaks down:

• The definition is “fast food,” which is a well‐known fast food item.
• The wordplay is a “container” clue. We take the first and last letters of “bear” (i.e. B and R) and “acquire” (contain) a word meaning “craving.” A synonym for craving is URGE.
• Inserting URGE between B and R gives: B + URGE + R = BURGER.

Thus, the six-letter answer is BURGER.

This explanation was generated using OpenAI’s O3 Mini large language model.