In case you missed Wednesday’s NYT Mini Crossword puzzle, you can find the answers here:
I’m still not quite ready for August to be over. It all happens so fast, sometimes. One minute it’s July. The next it’s September. What happened to the days in-between? It’s the second-to-last day of the month, and I haven’t fulfilled everything I thought I would be now. But I do intend to solve today’s Mini Crossword.
The NYT Mini is a smaller, quicker, more digestible, bite-sized version of the larger and more challenging NYT Crossword, and unlike its larger sibling, it’s free-to-play without a subscription to The New York Times. You can play it on the web or the app, though you’ll need the app to tackle the archive.
One good tactic with crossword puzzles is to try to get as many ACROSS as possible first and then you’ll find a lot of the DOWN are already done—or vice versa if the ones ACROSS are trickier.
While some of today’s words are pretty simple, some might have you stumped. You’ll find the answers below. Spoilers ahead, obviously. Skip ahead for the image of today’s solved puzzle.
Today’s advice: Solve what you can without looking anything up. Just solve ever Across and when you get stuck, solve every Down. It’ll shake itself out.
ACROSS
1 — Throws, as a fishing line — CASTS
6 — Omega’s opposite — ALPHA
7 — Hybrid fruit similar to an “aprium” — PLUOT
8 — Get the shampoo out — RINSE
9 — Signed, as a contract — INKED
DOWN
1 — Island that lends its name to a style of pants — CAPRI
2 — Betting every last poker chip — ALLIN
3 — Moxie — SPUNK
4 — “It’s just one of ____ days” — THOSE
5 — Happily full — SATED
Weirdly, none of these really slowed me down today except “It’s just one of ___ days” which, for whatever reason, I kept wanting to be “them”. It’s just one of them days. I had to reel it back a little and remember that it’s “those” and then everything basically came together quite nicely. I suppose it helps to have fished, or to have a knowledge of both islands and women’s pants. It helps to know how to get shampoo out of one’s hair, or ink a contract. All these things help, I imagine, but overall this was just a pretty mellow Mini. There’s nothing at all wrong with that.
How did you do? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
If you also play Wordle, I write guides about that as well. You can find those and all my TV guides, reviews and much more here on my blog. Thanks for reading!
