Mini Crossword hints, every day
One page a day, hints first and the answer covered until you ask.
How Mini Crossword works
A small crossword with a handful of Across and Down clues, built to be finished with a coffee. It is the early bird of the NYT games: a new Mini lands at 10 pm Eastern, the night before its date.
Our Mini page separates the two directions the way players think: one small letter hint for every clue first, then the Across answers and the Down answers behind a reveal.
Why our Mini page comes first
Because the puzzle resets at 10 pm Eastern, its hints go live at 10:10 pm, hours before the midnight games. Night owls on the East Coast and evening players further west both get help the moment the grid opens.
Mini Crossword strategy that actually helps
Fill the sure Across answers first, then let their crossing letters do the Down work; in a five-by-five grid one confirmed letter can unlock three entries at once. Wordplay clues in the Mini are gentler than the big crossword's: question marks still signal a pun, but abbreviations in the clue nearly always mean abbreviations in the answer. Stuck on one corner, move: the opposite corner often hands you the crossing letter for free.
Common mistakes
The timer tempts players into marrying their first idea. A wrong long answer poisons every crossing entry, so an answer that makes a Down entry impossible is wrong, however proud of it you are. Also watch plurals and verb endings: in a small grid, a single S at the end is the difference between a clean solve and a corner that will not move.
Play it yourself first: Play the official Mini Crossword at The New York Times. Come back here the moment you want a nudge instead of a giveaway.
Recent answers
Full table in the Mini Crossword archive. Missed a day? Every daily page stays live at its own dated address.