About Mini #373
Mini #373 is the daily 5×5 for Thursday, October 8, 2026. Its grid has four black squares, laid out as side-by-side pairs in the top-left and bottom-right corners, which leaves 21 white squares for ten answers: five Across and five Down. By length, that's four five-letter, four four-letter and two three-letter answers.
The shortest clue is 1-Across, “Yellow taxi”, at two words; the longest is 4-Across, “Say officially, or one of the fifty in the U.S.”, at ten words. Clues worth knowing about before you start:
- Marked as a short form: 8-Across, “Boxing's quick finish, for short”
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, “Say officially, or one of the fifty in the U.S.”; 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 31 of the 319 daily 5×5 puzzles in our library dated up to October 8, 2026. The layout is rotationally symmetric: turn the grid upside down and the black squares land in the same places. The day before (October 7, 2026) also had four 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 16 clues.
More for October 8, 2026
Stuck? The hints for October 8, 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 #372 (October 7, 2026), opens with 1-Across, “Rubik's puzzle shape”.