| DIRTYWORK | Unpleasant or illicit activity (5,4) |
| GRUNTWORK | Unpleasant or tedious work |
| NASTINESS | Unpleasant or spiteful behaviour (9) |
| OFFENSIVE | Unpleasant or disgusting to the senses (9) |
| EUPHEMISM | A figure of speech by which an unpleasant or offensive thing is referred to by a milder term (9) |
| CREEP | An act of crawling or inching slowly or stealthily; an inexorable movement of something, such as fog; or, a sycophant or otherwise unpleasant or detestable person (5) |
| HOTELS | Buildings in movies that seem to always have murders or affairs or illicit poker matches |
| AMOUR | A love affair (usually a secret or illicit one) |
| LIAISON | Usually secretive or illicit sexual relationship. (7) |
| HOOCH | An inferior or illicit whisky (5) |
| HUSTLERS | They are adept at aggressive or illicit dealing. |
| AFFAIR | Social event or illicit relationship |
| RUMBLE | Tummy sound - discover (an illicit activity) (6) |
| RINGLEADER | One heading up illicit activity |
| CAPER | Cloak right for illicit activity (5) |
| DENS | Places for illicit activity |
| FRONT | Cover for illicit activity |
| EMIR | Powerful person, with hindsight, lifted lid off illicit activity |
| DODGE | A dive, duck, sidestep, shun, veer or other evasive/hiding movement; a quibble; a ruse or cunning trick in order to avoid something unpleasant; or, an instance of two bells trading places in change-ri |
| STICKY | A gummed label or Post-it note; a word generally meaning adhesive, gluey, hot, humid, muggy, tenacious or unpleasant; or, paired with "willie", a clinging plant also called cleavers (6) |
