The New York Times Mini Crossword for Monday, May 25, 2026, arrives as the kind of breezy weekday grid that quietly hides its cleverness inside three letters. Solvers chasing a sub-minute streak will recognize the formula at a glance: a Science Guy nod, a Broadway orphan, a social media shorthand, and a dad-joke punchline stitched together inside the familiar 5×5 footprint. The puzzle is easy on paper and faster on execution, but the central crossings are tight enough that one missed vowel can stall an otherwise clean run.
Where and When the Mini Drops
The Mini is the New York Times’ shortest daily crossword, a 5×5 grid designed for speed rather than endurance. Most regulars finish in under two minutes, and even first-timers tend to wrap a Monday edition before their coffee cools. The puzzle is free to play with a Times account through the official Mini Crossword page, inside the NYT Games app, and within the Play tab of the main News app. Past puzzles remain available to Games and All Access subscribers.
New editions arrive on a consistent schedule. Weekdays and Saturdays drop at 10 p.m. Eastern the night before, while the Sunday puzzle posts earlier at 6 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. There is no streak counter the way Wordle keeps tally, but the built-in timer turns every solve into a quiet race against yourself or the friends sitting on your leaderboard.
Hints for Today’s Mini Crossword
If you want a nudge rather than a full reveal, these spoiler-light hints follow the order of the grid. The answers themselves appear in the next section.
Across Hints
- 1 Across: Perfectly fitting. Three letters, starts with A.
- 4 Across: Speculate. Five letters, the verb you use when you have no real idea.
- 6 Across: “It’s the Hard-Knock Life” musical. Five letters, red hair, Sandy the dog.
- 7 Across: Social media app with Reels and Stories, casually. Five letters, a nickname.
- 8 Across: Bill ___ the Science Guy. Three letters, ends in E.
Down Hints
- 1 Down: “4-Across ___!” (“Incorrect, but keep trying!”). Five letters, an encouragement.
- 2 Down: Like the groaner wordplay in dad jokes. Five letters, rhymes with funny.
- 3 Down: Feeling all wound up. Five letters, the opposite of relaxed.
- 4 Down: Simple dog command. Three letters, what you tell a puppy at the door.
- 5 Down: Mediterranean, for one. Three letters, the body of water itself.
NYT Mini Crossword Answers for May 25, 2026
Final spoiler warning. The verified answers for Monday’s grid are below.
Across Answers
- 1 Across: Perfectly fitting — APT
- 4 Across: Speculate — GUESS
- 6 Across: “It’s the Hard-Knock Life” musical — ANNIE
- 7 Across: Social media app with Reels and Stories, casually — INSTA
- 8 Across: Bill ___ the Science Guy — NYE
Down Answers
- 1 Down: “4-Across ___!” (“Incorrect, but keep trying!”) — AGAIN
- 2 Down: Like the groaner wordplay in dad jokes — PUNNY
- 3 Down: Feeling all wound up — TENSE
- 4 Down: Simple dog command — SIT
- 5 Down: Mediterranean, for one — SEA
How Today’s Grid Plays
The architecture of Monday’s puzzle is built around a small piece of self-referential wordplay. The clue at 4 Across, GUESS, pairs directly with 1 Down, where “4-Across ___!” resolves to AGAIN, the kind of light meta-joke the Mini’s editors have been threading into Monday grids for the better part of the last year. It is the puzzle’s wink, and once you spot it, the rest of the grid collapses inward.
From there, the cultural anchors do most of the heavy lifting. ANNIE is one of the most-clued Broadway entries in modern crossword history, and the “Hard-Knock Life” hook makes it almost reflexive. Bill Nye the Science Guy remains a generational shorthand that has aged into a crossword staple, with NYE filling a corner that crosses cleanly into INSTA, the kind of casual abbreviation that signals just how much the Mini has absorbed contemporary digital vocabulary.
The Down side leans on tone rather than trivia. PUNNY is the puzzle’s most playful entry, a self-aware label for the genre of jokes built on linguistic groaners. TENSE delivers a small misdirection by hinting at emotional rather than grammatical strain, while SIT and SEA round out the corners with the kind of three-letter glue that holds every Mini grid together.
Why the Mini Keeps Winning Mornings
The Mini Crossword has quietly become one of the most-played daily word games in the world, sitting alongside Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee, and Strands inside the rapidly expanding NYT Games portfolio.
Recent Mini editions have leaned harder into rapid thematic construction and compressed clue sequencing, a design shift visible across the past two weeks of puzzles. The bird-themed grid earlier this month, the literary lineage hidden inside Thursday’s compact 5×5, and the weekend’s expanded 7×7 Saturday edition all point toward a Mini that is becoming more sophisticated without losing the under-two-minute promise that built its audience. Today’s puzzle continues that trajectory by burying a meta-clue inside a grid that looks deceptively flat.
Strategy on a Monday Mini is less about vocabulary than rhythm. Experienced solvers typically start with the shortest entries first, because three-letter answers reveal crossing vowels that unlock the longer fills almost instantly. APT, NYE, SIT, and SEA all sit at three letters, and dropping them into the grid early makes ANNIE, GUESS, PUNNY, TENSE, and AGAIN snap into place with minimal hesitation.
If You Are Just Getting Into the NYT Games Habit
For newer players, the Mini is widely considered the cleanest entry point into the broader Times crossword universe. It carries the same editorial fingerprint as the full-size daily Crossword, just compressed into a footprint that fits comfortably on a phone screen. Once the daily Mini becomes routine, most solvers naturally graduate to the larger 15×15 weekday grid, where the wordplay deepens and the themes expand.
The Mini also pairs neatly with the rest of the NYT Games lineup. Players who finish today’s puzzle in under a minute often roll straight into Wordle, Connections, and Strands within the same session, a sequencing pattern the Times has actively encouraged through its app architecture. Monday’s grid, with its accessible clues and clean crossings, is exactly the kind of warm-up the full lineup is designed to reward.
The grid resets at 10 p.m. Eastern tonight. Tuesday’s edition arrives next, and the difficulty curve, as ever, will quietly tighten.
