The answer is ORIFICE, seven letters. It is the formal word for an opening, sitting at the same technical register as aperture itself. For shorter slots the usual candidates are GAP at three squares and HOLE, SLIT or VENT at four, so count the blanks before choosing.
ORIFICE literally means mouth-making
ORIFICE came into English in the early 1400s, from Old French orifice, the opening of a wound, and directly from Late Latin orificium. The Latin is a compound of os, oris, meaning mouth, and a combining form of facere, to make, so the word literally means mouth-making. Aperture arrived in the same century from Latin apertura, an opening, built on aperire, to open or uncover. Both still sound precise and slightly clinical, which is why they pair so well as clue and answer.
The mouth idea turns up again in a shorter fill. STOMA, the name for a tiny pore in the surface of a leaf, comes from the Greek word for mouth, and the botanical sense is recorded by 1837. The pore is bordered by guard cells that open and close it to control the exchange of gases. When a clue mentions a leaf, a plant or botany, STOMA is the five-letter answer to test.
Openings from GAP to LENS OPENING
Count the squares, then work down:
| Letters | Answer | What tips it |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | GAP | A break between two things |
| 4 | HOLE | Plain and general |
| 4 | SLIT | A long, narrow opening |
| 4 | VENT | An opening that lets air or gas out |
| 5 | MOUTH | The opening of a river, cave or jar |
| 5 | STOMA | Botany in the wording |
| 5 | FSTOP | A camera setting rather than the opening itself |
| 6 | WINDOW | An opening in a wall |
| 7 | ORIFICE | The default at seven |
| 7 | OPENING | The plain seven-letter rival |
| 7 | PINHOLE | A very small hole |
| 11 | LENSOPENING | Photography wording in a long slot |
The four-letter pile-up is where time disappears. HOLE, SLIT and VENT have different letters in each of their first three squares, so any crossing there settles it. The last square only rules HOLE in or out, because SLIT and VENT both end in T. At seven squares, ORIFICE and OPENING share the O at the start and the I in the fifth square, so check any of the other five.
How a camera lens uses the word
In optics, the aperture is the hole or opening that primarily limits the light passing through a system. In a camera lens its size is set by a diaphragm that works much like the iris of an eye, and the eye supplies the natural model: the pupil is its aperture and the iris is its diaphragm. Photographers describe the setting with f-numbers, the focal length of the lens divided by the diameter of its entrance pupil.
That division is why the numbers run backward from what beginners expect. A larger f-number means a smaller opening. The standard full stops run f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16 and f/22, and each step to a larger number halves the light getting through. Smaller openings also give greater depth of field, so a scene shot at f/16 has more of its depth in focus than the same scene at f/2. If a clue mentions a camera setting, FSTOP is the fill to test.
Sorting openings by what passes through them
The quickest filter for this clue is to ask what moves through the opening. Air and gas suggest VENT. Light suggests the camera vocabulary, FSTOP or LENS OPENING. Water, food and speech suggest MOUTH. A narrow cut suggests SLIT, and a break between two things suggests GAP. ORIFICE is the general formal word, which is why it answers the bare clue so well: it names an opening without committing to what goes in or out.
PINHOLE deserves a note of its own. A pinhole camera has no lens at all, only a tiny aperture in one side of a light-proof box, and light passing through it projects an upside-down image onto the opposite side. It is the plainest demonstration that the opening, not the glass, is what makes the picture. When the square count allows more than one option, try the technical words first, ORIFICE, STOMA and FSTOP, before the homelier HOLE and GAP. The crossings always have the final say.
Frequently asked questions
What is the answer to the Aperture crossword clue?
ORIFICE is the standard seven-letter answer. For shorter slots try GAP at three squares, HOLE, SLIT or VENT at four, and MOUTH or STOMA at five. OPENING also fits seven, and LENS OPENING fills eleven squares in photography clues.
What is the difference between ORIFICE and OPENING?
They mean the same thing, but orifice is formal and often technical, while opening is plain English. In the grid they share the O in the first square and the I in the fifth, so any of the other five crossings will tell them apart.
Why do smaller apertures have bigger f-numbers?
An f-number is the focal length of a lens divided by the diameter of its entrance pupil. Shrinking the opening makes the divisor smaller, so the number rises. Each full stop, such as f/8 to f/11, halves the light that gets through.
