The NYT Mini Crossword answers for Wednesday, July 29, 2026 are: PLAY, ROSE, BOOKS, POSE and AFEW across; PROOF, LOOSE, ASKEW, YES and BPA down.
Three hints are below if you want to work through the grid before the reveal.
Hint 1: One Across answer is the enchanted object at the center of a Disney animated classic.
Hint 2: One Across answer names both an animal and a yoga position; the clue refers only to the yoga mat.
Hint 3: One Down answer measures the strength of a spirit and also names something a mathematician constructs.
Across
1A: PLAY (Work’s opposite). The simplest entry in the grid and the easiest opener, anchoring the top row.
5A: ROSE (Glass-encased flower in “Beauty and the Beast”). The enchanted rose under its glass bell jar ticks down the remaining petals in the Beast’s curse. Specific enough to eliminate every other four-letter flower immediately.
6A: BOOKS (Stack on a nightstand). The five-letter center answer gives the Down entries their middle letters and acts as the grid’s structural anchor.
7A: POSE (Tree or cobra, in yoga class). The clue lists two animals, but the answer is a yoga stance: tree pose and cobra pose are both foundational positions in hatha yoga. Solvers who scan for an animal category will land on yoga on a second read.
8A: AFEW (Not that many). The two-word phrase runs as one string in the grid, as crossword convention requires.
Down
1D: PROOF (Measure of alcoholic content). In American liquor labeling, proof is twice the alcohol-by-volume percentage, a convention dating to eighteenth-century British soldiers who tested spirits by soaking gunpowder to see if it still ignited. The word carries a parallel mathematical meaning as well, a rigorous logical argument establishing a theorem, which the clue sets aside in favor of the bartender’s sense.
2D: LOOSE (Feeling relaxed). Clean and uncomplicated, crossing PLAY at the top of the column and POSE in the fourth row.
3D: ASKEW (Slightly crooked). The five-letter answer runs the full column and is probably the most vivid single word in today’s grid.
4D: YES (Rarely true response to “Have you read our terms and conditions?”). The wryest clue in the puzzle. It works because almost no one reads terms and conditions, yet YES is the answer tapped without hesitation on nearly every software installation since the 1990s. Three letters carrying thirty years of legal-disclaimer fatigue.
6D: BPA (____-free, label on water bottles). Bisphenol A, a compound once used widely in plastics and food-container linings. BPA-free labeling became standard in consumer goods following health concerns about the chemical acting as an endocrine disruptor.
Yesterday’s NYT Mini Crossword for July 28, 2026 featured BETA and BRAVO as consecutive across answers, both the second entry in their respective alphabets. The July 27 Mini Crossword is also in the archive. The Mini Crossword resets at 10 p.m. ET, and the July 30 puzzle will be live at that time.
