In case you missed Saturday’s NYT Mini, you can find the answers here:
It’s always fun when these puzzles teach you a thing or two, where even if you don’t know the answers, the other letters show you a way to something you didn’t know before. That happened at least three times to me today.
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) State with more pigs than people – IOWA
5) Sporcle offering – QUIZ
6) Facial cavity that can become congested – SINUS
8) Jamaican style of preparing chicken – JERK
9) On the ocean – ASEA
DOWN
1) Geniuses have high ones – IQS
2) Kind of board whose name is trademarked by Hasbro – OUIJA
3) Drinks kept in a cellar – WINES
4) Sky-blue – AZURE
7) Reggae relative – SKA
I was talking earlier about learning things from these puzzles, and there were a few interesting ones here today. I always thought of IOWA as the corn state, but I guess it has a big pig business as well. I did not know what Sporcle is, but I do now after I had to look it up. I had no idea SKA was related to Reggae. And finally, it seems rather rude to copyright an OUIJA board, our only means of contacting the dead. Very lame, Hasbro.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.