| FACER | A sudden serious difficulty (5) |
| EMERGENCY | Sudden serious danger |
| DONEFOR | In serious difficulty, a single female in bar keeled over |
| IMPASSE | This setter's over the hill - a serious difficulty (7) |
| UPAGAINSTIT | Antigua's pit destroyed, facing serious difficulty |
| FLOUNDER | Be in serious difficulty (8) |
| SURGE | Based on the Latin "to rise", a word used in its early sense to mean a fountain or stream, later a big wave, a billowing cloud, a sudden increase of power or a rush of emotion (5) |
| BLAST | A detonation in a quarry; a sudden gust of wind; or, a loud trump of a trumpet or car horn (5) |
| BREAK | A crack, fracture or split; a brief pause for elevenses, fourses or tiffin; a sudden rush to escape; a change in the weather; or, a caesura (5) |
| FLUSH | A rapid flight, spring up or start of game birds; a suffusion of crimson colour in the cheeks; a sudden flow of water; a fresh growth of foliage, flowers or fruit; or, a feeling of excitement (5) |
| START | Old English "caper, fling, leap, plunge headlong", today a commencement or a sudden movement of surprise; dawn or sunrise; or, the beginning of a journey or a race, perhaps for a prize (5) |
| CHECK | From a chess term, a word for a sudden stop; or, a test to evaluate the standard of something (5) |
| SPIKE | A long metal nail; a prong on which to impale documents; one of several projections on the sole of a running shoe; or, a sudden surge (5) |
| QUIRK | Word for a subtle verbal trick originally, later a quibble; an artful evasion; a sudden twist or turn; an eccentricity, foible or peculiarity; or, a flourish in handwriting (5) |
| TWIST | Curl of lemon zest as a cocktail garnish; or, a sudden change in the plot of a novel or film (5) |
| LURCH | A discomfiture; a backgammonlike game; a sudden unsteady pitch, roll or sway; or, the butler to the fictional Addams family (5) |
| DREAD | Word for awe or deep reverence; great fear or horror; an object of terror; a sudden take-off of a flock of gulls; or, Rastafari fear of God, thus one of the natty locks of a Rastafarian (5) |
| GLINT | Word for a sudden slip, slide or oblique movement first, later a bright gleam, brief indication, momentary flash or a twinkle in the eye (5) |
| SPASM | Maybe pass a number in a sudden burst! (5) |
| SWOOP | A sudden attack by a winger (5) |
