The NYT Mini Crossword answers today, for Monday, August 24, 2026, are TIGER, AMUSE, CHAIN, HINGE and TONE across, and TACH, IMHIT, GUANO, ESIGN and RENEE down.
Monday is back to a 5×5 board after Saturday’s larger grid, and this one is unusually open. There is a single black square in the whole puzzle, sitting in the bottom left corner.
Mini Crossword Answers Today, August 24, 2026: Across
- 1A Animal that appears orange to human eyes, but as a camouflaged green to deer – TIGER
- 6A Get a smile or laugh from – AMUSE
- 7A Business with multiple locations – CHAIN
- 8A Dating app with a curvy “H” logo – HINGE
- 9A “At the ___, please record your message …” – TONE
Mini Crossword Answers Today, August 24, 2026: Down
- 1D Dashboard gauge, for short – TACH
- 2D Dramatic cry in a game of paintball – IMHIT
- 3D Fertilizer obtained from bats – GUANO
- 4D Add one’s name to, as a PDF document – ESIGN
- 5D Actress Zellweger – RENEE
The Full Grid
Read down the rows, and the board is TIGER, AMUSE, CHAIN, HINGE, then a black square followed by TONE. Nine of the ten entries run the full five squares. Only 1D TACH and 9A TONE are four long, and they are short for the same reason: the one black square sits where they would otherwise meet.
Where to Start Today
RENEE at 5D. The clue names the actress outright; there is only one spelling, and it fills the last column top to bottom, which hands you the final letter of all four five-letter acrosses at once. From there, TIGER and CHAIN come almost free.
1A is the showpiece clue and the slowest way in. The fact about deer being unable to distinguish orange is true and genuinely interesting, and it is also four lines of text protecting a five-letter word most solvers would get from the crossings alone.
The Two That Will Cost You Time
IMHIT at 2D is the awkward one, because it is not a word. It is the phrase “I’m hit” with the apostrophe and space stripped out, and those run-together conversational entries are the hardest thing in a Mini to see from a partial fill. If you have I M H and nothing else, you are probably looking for a noun that does not exist.
TACH at 1D is the other. It is short for tachometer, the gauge that reads engine revolutions rather than speed, and the abbreviation is far more common in American usage than British or Indian. The clue flags it with “for short”, which is the only warning you get.
GUANO is a gift by comparison. Bat and seabird droppings used as fertiliser is a crossword staple, and once the G is in place from TIGER the rest arrives on its own.
Yesterday’s Mini Crossword answers also ran 5×5, with three downs running the full depth of the board.
Today’s other puzzles: Wordle #1892, Connections #1170, Strands #904 and the Spelling Bee.
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