About Mini #327
Mini #327 is the daily 5×5 for Sunday, August 23, 2026. Its grid has two black squares, laid out as single squares in the top-right and bottom-left corners, which leaves 23 white squares for ten answers: five Across and five Down. By length, that's six five-letter and four four-letter answers.
The shortest clue is 1-Across, “Pleads earnestly”, at two words; the longest is 7-Across, “Like ancient Rome, or a numeral like IV”, at eight words. Clues worth knowing about before you start:
- Marked as a short form: 3-Down, “The Olympics, for short”
There's no fill-in-the-blank this time, so a good first stop is the shortest slot: 1-Across has only four letters. Some clues lean on a name or title, such as 5-Across, “44th U.S. president”, 7-Across, “Like ancient Rome, or a numeral like IV”, 2-Down, “Deadly virus with an outbreak in West Africa” and 3-Down, “The Olympics, for short”; 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 72 of the 273 daily 5×5 puzzles in our library dated up to August 23, 2026. The layout is rotationally symmetric: turn the grid upside down and the black squares land in the same places. The day before (August 22, 2026) also had two black squares, arranged differently.
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 14 clues.
More for August 23, 2026
Stuck? The hints for August 23, 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 #326 (August 22, 2026), opens with 1-Across, “Org. for retired folks (abbr.)”; the day after, Mini #328 (August 24, 2026), opens with 1-Across, “In the middle of”.