About Mini #356
Mini #356 is the daily 5×5 for Monday, September 21, 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 4-Down, “Ripped apart”, at two words; the longest is 6-Across, “Metric unit of volume, about a quart”, 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 four letters. For more ways in, see the solving tips.
How this grid compares
This layout appears in 89 of the 302 daily 5×5 puzzles in our library dated up to September 21, 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 20, 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 21, 2026
Stuck? The hints for September 21, 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 #355 (September 20, 2026), opens with 1-Across, “Tool for chopping wood”; the day after, Mini #357 (September 22, 2026), opens with 1-Across, “Enthusiastic, like a big fan”.