The NYT Mini Crossword answers for Friday, August 7, 2026: Across – 1A MAC, 4A COLOR, 6A ARGUE, 7A BOARD, 8A NET
Down – 1D MORON, 2D ALGAE, 3D COURT, 4D CAB, 5D RED. Notes on the standout clues are below.
If you are still working through the grid, three hints before the full answers.
NYT Mini Crossword Hints for August 7, 2026
Hint 1: The 4-Across clue is a film technique reference. Think about what made Dorothy’s arrival in Oz so memorable – and what was absent from the Kansas scenes before it.
Hint 2: The 5-Down answer is a single color shared by two elite universities whose athletics programs compete in most of the same major sports.
Hint 3: The 3-Down answer names a surface you will find at America’s fastest-growing sport. Any racquet sports list will get you there.
Full Clues and Answers – August 7, 2026
1-Across: Apple computer – MAC. A clean opener; Apple’s personal computer line has carried this name since 1984 and remains one of the most recognizable three-letter fills in crossword history.
4-Across: What the Kansas scenes lack that the Oz scenes do not, in “The Wizard of Oz” – COLOR. The day’s best clue. The 1939 MGM film used sepia-tinted black-and-white for Dorothy’s Kansas prologue and full three-strip Technicolor from the moment she steps into Oz. The contrast was a deliberate storytelling choice and remains one of cinema’s most celebrated transitions. Fitting that a five-letter answer carries this much visual weight.
6-Across: Quarrel (with) – ARGUE. Standard vocabulary fill that slots cleanly into the middle row.
7-Across: Get on an airplane – BOARD. The airport verb every crossword constructor reaches for eventually. Unambiguous and fast to fill.
8-Across: “Nothing but ___!” – NET. The basketball phrase for a shot that passes cleanly through the hoop without touching the rim. A satisfying three-letter close to the Across set.
1-Down: Nincompoop – MORON. An unusually blunt Mini Crossword entry. MORON began as a clinical IQ classification in the early 20th century before crossing over into everyday use as an insult. The constructor went with directness here.
2-Down: Bottom of the aquatic food chain – ALGAE. Algae is the photosynthetic foundation on which virtually every marine and freshwater food chain depends. A science clue that rewards solvers who moved past the obvious and kept going down the column.
3-Down: Pickleball venue – COURT. Pickleball’s explosive growth in recent years has made it nearly mandatory crossword material. COURT applies equally to tennis, basketball, and squash; the constructor chose the trendiest angle into a word with multiple sporting lives.
4-Down: Yellow symbol of N.Y.C – CAB. New York’s yellow taxi has been a city icon since 1967, when the Haas Formula standardized cab color across licensed vehicles. Three letters, zero ambiguity.
5-Down: Like the logos of Stanford and Harvard – RED. Stanford’s Cardinal and Harvard’s Crimson are both red-based color identities, making RED the shared descriptor. The two schools compete as rivals across most major sports, which gives the clue a layer of irony: same color, long-running competition.
Our walkthrough of the NYT Mini Crossword from August 4 covers a grid that included a medical abbreviation and a trickier FENCE fill among the Down answers. The Mini resets daily at midnight Eastern time.
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