Mini Crossword 2026-10-16
The clock starts when you hit Start — server-timed.
You're not signed in — play free, unofficial and untimed-on-the-board. Your time shows at the end with the rank it would have earned. Sign in first to make it count.
How to play the mini
- Same as the big crossword, five by five. Click a square and type; click it again to flip Across/Down.
- The clue bar and the ‹ › buttons move you through the clues.
- It checks itself when the grid is full.
Read today’s clues — 5 Across · 5 Down
Across
- Infants, in old-fashioned terms
- Like farm country
- Fuming
- Like the emperor in a famous fairy tale
- Scottish valleys
Down
- Carry along to the potluck, say
- Related to hearing
- Pedal next to the gas
- Consumed, as a meal
- Snow-day rides
The clock doesn’t start until you hit Start. Reading ahead is legal; what it does to your bragging rights is between you and your conscience.
How to play the mini
- Same as the big crossword, five by five. Click a square and type; click it again to flip Across/Down.
- The clue bar and the ‹ › buttons move you through the clues.
- It checks itself when the grid is full.
Five by five, gone in a minute
The mini is the espresso shot: a 5×5 grid, ten-ish clues, and a personal best measured in seconds. There’s a new one at midnight Eastern, free for everyone, and it’s the same grid for everyone — which is what makes the board interesting, because on a puzzle this small there is nowhere to hide. One wrong guess costs you a bigger share of your time than any 15×15 mistake ever will.
Timed like it matters
Minis are where inflated leaderboard times go to breed — a browser-reported seven-second solve is usually a macro, not a person. So the mini gets the same treatment as the main event: the server times you from Start to last square, replays your keystrokes, and checks the pacing is human before a rated time touches the board. The scheme is spelled out in how the honest board works.
Going sub-minute
Read nothing twice. Take the Acrosses in one pass, typing everything you’re sure of; by the time you sweep the Downs, most squares are crossings and half the clues answer themselves. If two answers fit, put one in — a wrong crossing vetoes it faster than deliberation will. The grid checks itself the moment it’s full, so there’s no submit button to fumble at 0:41.
The back catalog — every mini so far — lives in the mini archive.