double duty

plural double duties

1. countableuncountableThe performance of two distinct roles simultaneously or the undertaking of work for two people.

   But if a token phenomenal feel does double duty in this way (as a token of an aspect of both the pain and our way of thinking of the pain), no extra specter of dualism arises.

   2006 March 23, Dean Zimmerman, Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Volume 2, OUP Oxford, →ISBN, page 22

2. countableuncountablecrosswordingA cryptic device or cluing error whereby a term forms part of both the definition and the wordplay.

   "working" here does double duty as an anagram indicator and as a main constituent of the definition.

   2015 January 1, B. J. Holmes, Pocket Crossword Dictionary, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   I find this anagram fascinating, a message from the god of language. Mess serves double duty here, as synonym and as anagram tip-off.

   1986 10, “Spy”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), page 61

   Dunnart is undoubtedly audacious in suggesting that the first word of “Skip the front page of paper, heading for crossword instead?” might not be really doing double duty.

   2020 March 2, Alan Connor, “Crossword roundup: when 'coquettes' were male”, in The Guardian