The NYT Mini Crossword for Saturday, June 6, 2026, arrives with the expanded 7×7 grid that the puzzle reserves for its most challenging day of the week. Today’s edition spans 18 clues across and down, pulling from Great Lakes geography, the Wasatch mountain range, a Spider-Man villain who draws his power from lightning, and a two-word answer that doubles as both a wartime biography and a casual compliment. It is the kind of puzzle that rewards solvers who read clues twice before committing to ink – or tapping a letter on glass.
If you are playing on the NYT Mini Crossword, the grid resets tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern, giving you the full day to finish the Saturday challenge before Sunday’s edition takes its place. Whether you cleared it in under two minutes or found yourself genuinely stumped by a Utah mountain range or a pen name prefix, the full verified answers for every clue are below.
NYT Mini Crossword Across Answers – June 6, 2026
1 Across: “Easy peasy!” – NOSWEAT
A seven-letter informal phrase meaning the task required no effort at all. The clue uses the exclamation to signal a colloquial register, and the puzzle opens the grid with it – a wink at anyone who finds the Saturday edition anything but effortless. The two-word expression “no sweat” has long functioned as a breezy synonym for effortlessness in American English, and the Mini renders it as a single compound entry.
8 Across: Great Lake whose name can be translated in Iroquoian as “great lake” – ONTARIO
Lake Ontario, the smallest of the five Great Lakes by surface area, sits on the border between Ontario, Canada, and New York State. The Iroquois name carries the literal meaning the clue supplies. Geographically, Ontario drains into the St. Lawrence River and sits at the eastern end of the Great Lakes chain. The clue leans on etymology as much as geography, making it a rewarding solve for history-minded players.
9 Across: Use a ruler – MEASURE
A clean, direct definition clue. To use a ruler is to measure, and the seven-letter answer fills out the across section without ambiguity. This is the kind of answer the Mini includes to provide structural anchoring in the grid – a reliable fill that intersects productively with several down answers.
10 Across: Word after “brake,” “Brillo” or “bachelor” – PAD
Three-letter answers in the Mini often pack the most misdirection, and this one is no exception. A brake pad, a Brillo pad, and a bachelor pad share nothing except the word that follows them. The clue structure – three nouns requiring the same suffix – is a classic Mini construction technique. PAD fills the slot neatly.
11 Across: Having more sodium – SALTIER
A seven-letter comparative adjective that describes food with a higher sodium content. In contemporary internet usage, “saltier” has also come to mean more irritable or resentful, but the puzzle keeps the clue anchored in its literal, culinary sense. The double meaning is the kind of background noise the NYT crossword team allows to hum beneath a clean surface definition.
15 Across: Spider-Man foe who gained his powers from a lightning strike – ELECTRO
Electro, real name Maxwell Dillon, is one of Spider-Man’s most enduring villains from the Marvel Comics universe. His powers – the ability to generate and manipulate electricity – came from a freak accident involving a power line and a lightning strike. The character has appeared in multiple animated series and was portrayed by Jamie Foxx in two Spider-Man film adaptations. ELECTRO is a seven-letter answer that fits cleanly into the grid’s lower section.
16 Across: George Washington or George Patton – WARHERO
The final across answer is a two-word compound that covers the full arc of American military history, from the Revolutionary War to World War II. George Washington commanded the Continental Army through eight years of armed conflict before becoming the nation’s first president. George Patton commanded the U.S. Third Army during the Allied sweep across Western Europe in 1944 and 1945. Both earned their reputations on the battlefield. WARHERO, rendered as a single seven-letter entry, closes out the across section.
NYT Mini Crossword Down Answers – June 6, 2026
1 Down: ___ de plume – NOM
The French phrase “nom de plume” means a pen name – the assumed identity under which a writer publishes work. The three-letter fill NOM is the first word of that phrase. The clue uses the blank-fill format to let solvers reconstruct the compound expression. It is a compact, elegant construction that relies on a French borrowing deeply embedded in English literary vocabulary.
2 Down: First digit of pi after the decimal – ONE
Pi begins 3.14159…, which means the first digit after the decimal point is 1. ONE is the three-letter answer. The clue is mathematically precise and rewards solvers who remember the opening digits of pi rather than simply knowing it involves a decimal. A clean, satisfying fill that intersects productively with NOSWEAT above.
3 Down: Paper pusher? – STAPLER
The question mark signals wordplay. A stapler does not merely move paper – it physically pushes a metal fastener through it. The playful redefinition of “paper pusher” as a mechanical device rather than a bureaucratic archetype is the kind of misdirection that defines the best Mini clues. STAPLER is a seven-letter down answer that intersects with SALTIER across.
4 Down: Major mountain range in Utah – WASATCH
The Wasatch Range runs roughly 160 miles through northern Utah, anchoring the eastern edge of the Salt Lake Valley and forming the backdrop for Salt Lake City. The range includes several world-class ski resorts and reaches elevations above 11,000 feet. WASATCH is a seven-letter answer that draws on American geography in a way that will slow down solvers without a western United States reference point.
5 Down: Well-read – ERUDITE
Seven letters. To be erudite is to possess extensive knowledge acquired through deep reading and study. The word arrives from the Latin “erudire,” meaning to instruct or educate. It is one of the more literary answers in today’s grid, sitting comfortably alongside ONTARIO and WASATCH as a piece of vocabulary that rewards general cultural knowledge over narrow subject expertise. Solvers tracking difficulty patterns in recent editions – including the bird-themed May 22 puzzle – will recognize this as one of the more refined entries in recent weeks.
6 Down: It’s mostly nitrogen and oxygen – AIR
A three-letter fill with a clean scientific basis. Earth’s atmosphere is composed of approximately 78 percent nitrogen and 21 percent oxygen, with trace amounts of argon, carbon dioxide, and other gases. AIR is the three-letter answer, and the clue avoids the obvious “what you breathe” framing in favor of a slightly more precise atmospheric description.
7 Down: Wiggler in a sock – TOE
Three letters, high charm. A toe wiggles inside a sock in the way that small children demonstrate when asked to move their feet without removing their shoes. The clue is pleasingly domestic and tactile. TOE slots cleanly into the upper right section of the grid.
11 Down: Stitch up – SEW
A three-letter verb meaning to join or close fabric – or a wound – using thread and needle. The clue is direct, and SEW is a reliable short fill that the Mini reaches for when the grid needs a compact crossing solution.
12 Down: Chicken ___ king – ALA
The French culinary phrase “à la king” refers to a preparation style in which chicken is served in a rich cream sauce with mushrooms and pimentos. ALA is the three-letter fill, derived from the French “à la,” meaning “in the style of.” The dish has been a staple of American dinner tables and banquet menus since the early twentieth century.
13 Down: Make a mistake – ERR
Three letters, clean definition. To err is human, as the saying goes, and ERR is a crossword standard that appears reliably in compact grids because of its vowel-heavy construction and its value as an intersecting anchor.
14 Down: Aussie animal, for short – ROO
A three-letter informal abbreviation for kangaroo, the marsupial native to Australia and one of the most recognizable animals on the continent. ROO appears frequently in the Mini and in British and Australian colloquial speech as a diminutive for kangaroo. The clue’s “for short” construction signals that solvers should be looking for an abbreviated form rather than the full species name.
How Difficult Is Today’s NYT Mini Crossword?
Saturday’s grid is the most demanding the Mini produces each week. Today’s edition earns that reputation honestly. The seven-letter answers – NOSWEAT, ONTARIO, MEASURE, SALTIER, ELECTRO, WARHERO, STAPLER, WASATCH, and ERUDITE – require genuine subject range, touching on Great Lakes geography, Marvel Comics history, culinary science, and classical vocabulary in the same compact grid. The three-letter fills provide footholds, but solvers who entered the grid from the bottom up may have found ELECTRO and WARHERO resistant until the crossing letters from 3 Down and 4 Down came into view.
The puzzle’s degree of difficulty sits firmly in the upper tier of recent Saturday editions. For solvers who want to revisit how recent grids have compared, the May 20 edition – which drew on endurance sports history and tech nostalgia – offers a useful point of comparison.
About the NYT Mini Crossword
The Mini Crossword is a free daily puzzle published by The New York Times as part of its NYT Games suite. On weekdays and Saturdays, the puzzle goes live at 10 p.m. Eastern; Sunday’s edition arrives earlier, at 6 p.m. Eastern on Saturday night. The weekday grid is a 5×5 square with five Across and five Down clues. Saturday expands to a 7×7 format with more entries and greater average difficulty. There is no streak mechanic in the Mini the way Wordle tracks consecutive daily solves, but a built-in timer allows players to measure their performance and compete against their own personal records.
The puzzle is edited by the same team that oversees the flagship NYT Crossword and sits within the broader NYT Games ecosystem alongside Wordle, Connections, Strands, and Spelling Bee. Unlike the full crossword, which requires a paid subscription, the Mini is accessible to any registered New York Times account holder at no additional cost. It has grown into one of the most widely played daily logic puzzles in digital media, with millions of completions logged each morning across mobile and desktop platforms.
Solvers looking to track their performance across puzzle types may also find value in the NYT Connections answers published here each day, alongside daily breakdowns of Wordle, Strands, and the full crossword.
