These types of puzzles are known as charades. What you have to do is to find two words that are referred to in the first stanza and the second stanza and put them together to form the third word in the third stanza.
Just for example, if my first refers to 'off' and my second refers to 'ice', then my whole will be the 'office'.
My first is present - future's past -
A time in which your lot is cast.
My second is my first of space
Defining people's present place.
My whole describes a lack of site -
A place without length, breadth, or height.
In a basket of apples,
when counted in twos, there was one extra
when counted in threes, there were two extra when counted in fours, there were three extra
when counted in fives, there were four extra
when counted in sixes, there was five extra.
However, if the apples were counted in sevens, no extra apple was left. Can you calculate the minimum number of apples that were present in the basket?
The day before the 1996 U.S. presidential election, the NYT Crossword contained the clue “Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper,” the puzzle was built so that both electoral outcomes were correct answers, requiring 7 other clues to have dual responses.
