Here are all the NYT Mini Crossword answers for Friday, July 24, 2026.
Across
1A: SHELL – What SpongeBob uses as a telephone
6A: HELLO – Telephone answering word
7A: HALAL – Following Islamic dietary laws
8A: TIME – Watch’s display
9A: HEAD – Watch your ___!
Down
1D: SHH – Quiet, you!
2D: HEATH – Coffee ___ Bar Crunch (classic Ben & Jerry’s flavor)
3D: ELLIE – Actress Kemper of ‘The Office’
4D: LLAMA – Peruvian pack animal
5D: LOLED – Reacted to a funny meme, informally
Notable Clues
The puzzle opens with a pop-culture connection: SpongeBob SquarePants lives underwater and uses a shell as a telephone. SHELL (1A) feeds directly into SHH (1D) – the three-letter hush interjection shares the same SH opening, making the cross one of the neater constructions in today’s grid. Solvers who dropped SHELL early had a strong foothold through both S and H.
HALAL (7A) is the most culturally specific entry. The dietary designation – permissible under Islamic law – appears regularly in crosswords but can stall solvers approaching it purely phonetically without the religious context. The five-letter pattern with H-A start is unusual enough that crossing letters matter here.
2D (HEATH) requires knowing that the Ben & Jerry’s flavour is Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, made with Heath toffee pieces. The fill-in-the-blank clue format flags a proper noun or brand name, which narrows it down quickly once the H from HELLO and the T from TIME are in place.
3D (ELLIE) refers to Ellie Kemper, who played Erin Hannon on The Office. 5D (LOLED) is the informal past tense of LOL – a reliable crossword fill that occasionally trips solvers who expect LOLLED with a double L. The single-L construction is the standard crossword rendering of the abbreviation in past tense.
For recent Mini Crossword coverage, see our answers for July 23, 2026 and July 22, 2026.
