How to Play the NYT Mini

The NYT Mini is a quick and dirty version of the newspaper's larger and long-running crossword. Most days, there are between three and five clues in each direction on a five by five grid, but the puzzles are sometimes larger, especially on Saturdays.

Unlike its larger sibling, the NYT Mini crossword is free to play on the New York Times website or NYT Games app. However, you’ll need an NYT Games subscription to access previous puzzles in the archives.

The NYT Mini is a fun daily distraction that usually takes no time at all. I try to beat the standard weekday grid in less than a minute. But sometimes I can't quite figure out one or two clues and need to reveal the answer.

To help you avoid doing that, here are the NYT Mini Crossword answers (spoilers lie ahead, of course):

NYT Mini Crossword Clues And Answers

ACROSS

1) Reason to edit a text message - TYPO
5) ___ Wiseman, commander on NASA’s Artemis II mission - REID
6) Artificial hair extension - WEAVE
7) Batman or Superman - HERO
8) Manager’s helper: Abbr. - ASST

DOWN

1) Things that families and forests both have - TREES
2) 1,000 make up a millennium - YEARS
3) Quickly change the topic - PIVOT
4) Laudatory poem - ODE
6) “Huh ...?” - WHA

No real theme today and we are heading toward the smallest possible amount of letters in one of these puzzles without going below whatever the minimum is. 21, by my count, and I’m curious what the all time low is. Five by Five for 25 total is a pretty common puzzle, but subtracting more than four spaces from that is pretty rare, I think.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.