It means that the answer to the clue has a variant in spelling, or simply that the word does not have the most common spelling.
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National Enterprise Association
There are many great internet sources where information about crossword puzzle dictionaries can be found. Webster crossword puzzle dictionary is one of these great sources.
There will be a person that works for the newspaper or magazine which the crossword will feature in, and they will be in charge of using a computer program that creates the clues for the crossword puzzle.
I believe it stands for "colloquialism". Like a slang term. eg "British Conservative party (coll.)" - Tory.
CRUCIVERBALIST : a person skillful in creating or solving crossword puzzles