About Mini #322
Mini #322 is the daily 5×5 for Tuesday, August 18, 2026. Its grid has four black squares, laid out as single squares in all four corners, which leaves 21 white squares for ten answers: five Across and five Down. By length, that's six five-letter and four three-letter answers.
The shortest clue is 7-Across, “Permit”, at one word; the longest is 1-Across, “Send a document over a phone line”, at seven words. None of the ten clues is a fill-in-the-blank, a quotation, a question-mark clue or a marked short form.
There's no fill-in-the-blank this time, so a good first stop is the shortest slot: 1-Across has only three letters. Some clues lean on a name or title, such as 4-Across, “Leaders of the Catholic Church”; if one is unfamiliar, work its crossing answers first. For more ways in, see the solving tips.
How this grid compares
This layout appears in 29 of the 268 daily 5×5 puzzles in our library dated up to August 18, 2026. The layout is rotationally symmetric: turn the grid upside down and the black squares land in the same places. That's two black squares more than the day before (August 17, 2026), which had two.
Like every daily 5×5 in our library, it was generated at our “easy” difficulty setting. The same date also has a 6×6 with 12 clues and a 7×7 with 16 clues.
More for August 18, 2026
Stuck? The hints for August 18, 2026 give three hints per clue, the answer key reveals one answer at a time, and there's a printable copy for solving on paper. The day before, Mini #321 (August 17, 2026), opens with 1-Across, “Hint for a detective”; the day after, Mini #323 (August 19, 2026), opens with 1-Across, “Big brass instrument that oompahs in a marching band”.