About Mini #383
Mini #383 is the daily 5×5 for Sunday, October 18, 2026. Its grid has four black squares, laid out as stacked pairs in the top-right and bottom-left 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 4-Down, “Wager”, at one word; the longest is 9-Across, “Plant a flower start, or a top-ranked player”, at eight words. Clues worth knowing about before you start:
- Marked as a short form: 1-Down, “Computer's ‘brain,’ for short”; 7-Down, “Mind-altering drug, in brief”
There's no fill-in-the-blank this time, so a good first stop is the shortest slot: 1-Down has only three letters. For more ways in, see the solving tips.
How this grid compares
This layout appears in 26 of the 329 daily 5×5 puzzles in our library dated up to October 18, 2026. The layout is rotationally symmetric: turn the grid upside down and the black squares land in the same places. The day before (October 17, 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 14 clues.
More for October 18, 2026
Stuck? The hints for October 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 #382 (October 17, 2026), opens with 1-Across, “Marshy, wet ground”.