About Mini #338
Mini #338 is the daily 5×5 for Thursday, September 3, 2026. Its grid has two black squares, laid out as single squares in the top-left and bottom-right 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, “Grub, informally”, at two words; the longest is 6-Across, “Not yet lit, as a candle”, at six 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 four letters. Some clues lean on a name or title, such as 5-Across, “Florida city with South Beach” and 7-Across, “Highlanders of Scotland”; 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 83 of the 284 daily 5×5 puzzles in our library dated up to September 3, 2026. The layout is rotationally symmetric: turn the grid upside down and the black squares land in the same places. That's four black squares fewer than the day before (September 2, 2026), which had six.
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 September 3, 2026
Stuck? The hints for September 3, 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 #337 (September 2, 2026), opens with 1-Across, “Undergarment with cups”; the day after, Mini #339 (September 4, 2026), opens with 1-Across, “Small shrub in a garden”.