The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 5 letter word ROOTS
I've seen this crossword clue in The Times
R
O
O
T
S
More clues leading to the result ROOTS
- Really old oak trees survive principally — on these
- Ferret's origins
- Rubbish about old soprano’s origins
- Test batsman, opener from Somerset, becomes established
- Test batsman, opener from Sheffield, gets set
- Sources of oxygen in balls: sun
- Origins of automatons not British
- Firmly establishes ancestry
- Sources for ethnic music in TV series
- Searches for origins
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "these" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case these = roots.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does ROOTS mean?
ROOTS noun- The part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors and supports the plant body, absorbs and stores water and nutrients, and in some plants is able to perform vegetative reproduction.
- A root vegetable.
- The part of a tooth extending into the bone holding the tooth in place.
- The part of a hair under the skin that holds the hair in place.
- The part of a hair near the skin that has not been dyed, permed, or otherwise treated.
- The primary source; origin.
- Of a number or expression, a number which, when raised to a specified power, yields the specified number or expression.
- A square root (understood if no power is specified; in which case, “the root of” is often abbreviated to “root”).
- A zero (of an equation).
- The single node of a tree that has no parent.
- The primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Inflectional stems often derive from roots.
- (philology) A word from which another word or words are derived.
- The fundamental tone of any chord; the tone from whose harmonics, or overtones, a chord is composed.
- The lowest place, position, or part.
- In UNIX terminology, the first user account with complete access to the operating system and its configuration, found at the root of the directory structure; the person who manages accounts on a UNIX system.
- The highest directory of a directory structure which may contain both files and subdirectories.
- A penis, especially the base of a penis.
- An act of sexual intercourse.
- A sexual partner.
- Ancestry.
- Beginnings; origin.