The NYT Mini Crossword answers for Sunday, August 9, 2026, are: SMUSH (1-Across), HIPPO (6-Across), UNTIL (7-Across), STOKE (8-Across), and HYPED (9-Across).
Down answers: SHUSH (1-Down), MINTY (2-Down), UPTOP (3-Down), SPIKE (4-Down), and HOLED (5-Down).
Not ready for the spoilers yet? Hints for each entry are listed below. Scroll past them for the full solution and clue breakdowns.
Hints for Today’s NYT Mini Crossword – Across
1-Across (5 letters): Think of what a child does to a bug underfoot, casually.
6-Across (5 letters): The common English name for what ancient Greeks called a “river horse.”
7-Across (5 letters): Fills in the blank: “Wait ___ next time!”
8-Across (5 letters): What you do to a campfire when you add a fresh log.
9-Across (5 letters): Overpromoted, as a film that could not live up to its trailer.
Hints for Today’s NYT Mini Crossword – Down
1-Down (5 letters): A librarian’s favorite command.
2-Down (5 letters): Flavored like the most popular green mouthwash.
3-Down (5 letters): The call that precedes “down low, too slow!”
4-Down (5 letters): A powerful volleyball hit that wins points.
5-Down (5 letters): Past tense of sinking a golf putt.
NYT Mini Crossword Answers – August 9, 2026
The Sunday grid is more playful than the day-of-week usually promises, built around sounds and sensations. SMUSH opens the grid at 1-Across, an informal verb for squashing something flat that earns its place in the puzzle because it sounds exactly like what it means. The clue is simply “Flatten, informally,” which leaves plenty of paths toward the answer and a few wrong turns along the way.
HIPPO at 6-Across comes with the standout clue of the day: “African mammal that can weigh up to 10,000 pounds.” That detail is accurate: the hippopotamus is the third-heaviest land animal after the two elephant species. SHUSH crossing SMUSH at 1-Down is the grid’s neatest structural moment, two five-letter words that differ by only a single letter and both represent sounds people make to suppress other sounds.
MINTY at 2-Down refers to those vivid green mouthwashes, while UPTOP at 3-Down is the call-and-response opener for the “down low, too slow” gag that has survived decades of playground use. STOKE and HYPED at 8-Across and 9-Across pair naturally in the bottom row, a small energy arc the constructor may have intended. HOLED at 5-Down is the past tense of sinking a golf putt, a usage narrow enough to trip up anyone who does not follow the sport closely.
For the complete clues and solution from Friday’s puzzle, see the NYT Mini Crossword answers for August 7, 2026, which featured the Technicolor clue from The Wizard of Oz.
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