How to Play Mini Crossword

What is a mini crossword?

A mini crossword is a small crossword puzzle, usually a 5×5 grid, that you can solve in a few minutes. It works exactly like the big crosswords in a newspaper: you read a clue, work out the answer, and write it into the grid one letter per square. The difference is size. A 5×5 has only ten answers, so a whole puzzle fits on a phone screen and fits into a coffee break. If you want the longer story of the format, read what is a mini crossword?

On this site there is a new 5×5 every day at midnight Eastern Time, along with a 6×6 and a 7×7 for when you want something longer. Everything is free and nothing needs an account.

The rules

There are only four rules, and if you have ever done a crossword you already know them.

1 · Fill every white square

The grid is made of white squares and black squares. Every white square gets exactly one letter. Black squares are never filled; they only mark where answers start and stop. On our 5×5 grids there are two, four or six black squares, usually in the corners, so most answers are four or five letters long and a few are three.

2 · Across answers read left to right, Down answers top to bottom

Every answer runs in a straight line from its numbered square. An Across answer reads left to right until it hits a black square or the edge of the grid. A Down answer reads top to bottom the same way. A 5×5 always has five Across answers and five Down answers, ten in total.

3 · Crossing answers share letters

Nearly every white square belongs to two answers at once: one Across and one Down. The letter in that square has to work for both. This is the heart of every crossword. When you are sure of one answer, it hands you a letter in each of the answers that cross it, and when you are unsure of one, the crossings tell you whether your guess holds up.

4 · The puzzle is solved when every letter is right

As soon as the last correct letter goes in, the timer stops and the puzzle is solved. If you fill every square but some letters are wrong, the board tells you how many squares are incorrect and marks them, so you can fix them and try again. There is no penalty for a wrong fill and no limit on attempts.

How to read the grid

The small number in the corner of a square marks the start of an answer. A square gets a number if an Across answer or a Down answer (or both) begins there, and the numbers run left to right, top to bottom. So 1-Across and 1-Down usually start in the same square, and a clue called “5-Down” starts in the square numbered 5.

On the board, the square your cursor is on is yellow and the rest of the word it belongs to is light blue. That blue band is the answer to the current clue, so you always know which clue you are answering and how many letters it needs. The counter just above the grid shows how many of the ten answers are filled in.

On a wide screen the full clue list sits beside the grid, with a tick next to each answer you have filled. On a phone the current clue sits in a bar above the keyboard, and the whole list is one tap away under All clues.

How the clues work

Mini crossword clues are short definitions, not riddles. Most of the time the answer is simply another word or phrase that means the same thing as the clue. A few habits make them much easier to read:

• The clue matches the answer's form. A plural clue wants a plural answer and a past-tense clue wants a past-tense answer.
• Blanks are fill-ins. A clue like “___ Island” wants the missing word.
• Short-form signals. “For short”, “briefly” or an abbreviation in the clue means the answer is short too.
• A question mark means wordplay. Read the clue again for a pun or a second meaning.

The solving tips page covers each of these with real examples from our puzzles.

A worked example

Here is a real 5×5 from our puzzle library, solved the way an experienced solver would solve it. The top-left and bottom-right squares are black, which is the most common shape on this site. These are the ten clues:

Step 1 · Find a gimme. Do not start at 1-Across just because it is first. Read all ten clues and look for one you know for certain. “Spoon for serving soup” in five letters can only be LADLE, and it runs the full width of the second row, so it touches all five Down answers.

Step 2 · Use the letters you just earned. 1-Down, “Bluegrass string instrument”, now reads _A___. Five letters with A second is BANJO. 5-Down, “Told a fib”, starts with the L of LADLE and has four squares. “Told” is past tense, so the answer is too: LIED, not LIE.

Step 3 · Let the crossings confirm each other. 4-Down, “Body parts you stand on”, has four squares, and its second letter is the E at the end of LADLE. “Parts” is plural, so FEET fits both the clue and the E. That puts an F at the end of the top row, and BANJO already put a B at its start: 1-Across, “Physically fit and muscular”, is B _ _ F. That is BUFF.

Step 4 · Two letters are often enough. 2-Down now starts U-D and 3-Down starts F-L. “Cow's milk-producing part” beginning UD is UDDER. “Movie, informally” beginning FL is FLICK; the word “informally” is the clue telling you the answer is slang, not a formal word like FILM.

Step 5 · Read what the grid has written for you. With all five Down answers in place, the last three Across answers are already complete. The third row reads INDIE (“Not with a major record label”), the fourth reads EJECT (“Push the button to leave a bad seat, say”) and the bottom row reads DORK (“Uncool, nerdy sort”). Read each clue once to be sure, and the puzzle is solved.

Notice the order. We never solved the clues from 1 to 10. We started with the one answer we were sure of, then always went next to the clue that had the most letters already filled in. That is the whole method, and it works on every size of grid.

The tools on the board

The toolbar above the grid holds four controls, with the timer in the middle and a gear for settings on the left.

Clear

Opens a small menu with three choices. Square erases the square you are on, Word erases the whole answer you are on, and Puzzle empties the grid. Clearing never resets the timer.

Check

Checks every letter you have entered so far. Wrong letters get a red slash through the square and correct letters turn blue. Empty squares are ignored, so you can check a half-finished grid without giving anything away about the squares you have not reached. Type over a slashed square to clear the mark.

Reveal

Fills in the correct letters for the word your cursor is on and nothing else. Revealed letters are shown in blue. It is the right tool when one answer is holding up the whole grid: reveal it, and its letters usually unlock the words that cross it.

Pencil

The pencil button turns pencil mode on and off. Letters typed in pencil mode appear in gray, which is a handy way to mark a guess you want to test against the crossings. When you are sure, turn pencil mode off and type the letter again to make it permanent. Pencilled letters still count toward the solution.

Settings

The gear opens five switches that change how the cursor behaves:

• Autocheck (off by default) checks each letter the moment you type it.
• Skip filled squares (on) lets the cursor jump over letters you have already entered while you type.
• Jump back to first blank (on) sends the cursor back to the first empty square of a word when you reach its end with gaps left behind.
• Jump to next clue (on) moves you to the next clue that still has an empty square once the current word is full.
• On-screen keyboard (on) shows or hides the letter keys on phones and tablets.

Keyboard controls

On a computer the whole puzzle works from the keyboard. Click any white square to start, or click a clue in the list to jump to its first empty square.

Clicking the square you are already on also switches between Across and Down. When a square only belongs to one answer, the direction stays on that answer.

Playing on a phone or tablet

On a phone the board fills the width of the screen and an on-screen keyboard sits under it, so the system keyboard never pops up and covers the grid. Above the keys is a clue bar showing the current clue: tap the arrows at either end to move to the previous or next clue, and tap the clue itself to switch between Across and Down. The toolbar stays pinned under the site menu while you scroll through the board. Tablets get the same on-screen keyboard, even in landscape, and you can hide it from the settings if you use a hardware keyboard.

The timer, streaks and best times

The timer sits in the middle of the toolbar. On the homepage, and on the practice puzzle above, it starts when you press Play; on the other puzzle pages it starts when the page loads. It pauses while the tab is in the background, so a phone call does not cost you, and it stops the moment the puzzle is solved. Solving that day's puzzle adds a day to your streak, and your fastest times are kept as personal bests, one for daily puzzles and one for Unlimited. All of it is saved in your browser, along with the letters of any puzzle you have not finished yet.

When you get stuck

Try a different corner first: a fresh clue with two letters already in it is often easier than the one you are staring at. If that does not work, every daily 5×5 has its own hints page with three hints per clue, each a little stronger than the last, so you can take just the nudge you need. If you would rather see an answer, the answers page reveals one answer at a time. And inside the game, Reveal fills in only the word you are on.

Daily puzzles, the archive and Unlimited

The daily puzzle is a new 5×5 every day, and everyone gets the same grid, so it is the one to compare times on. Missed a day? The archive keeps the last 90 days, each with its own hints and answers. Want more room? There is a new 6×6 and 7×7 every day too. And when one puzzle is not enough, Unlimited serves puzzle after puzzle from our whole library in any of the three sizes. Prefer paper? Every recent daily has a printable version.

Ready to play?

Start with today's puzzle. Read every clue first, fill in the one you are sure of, and let the crossings carry you. For the habits that make solving faster, read the solving tips, and if a question is not answered here, the FAQ probably has it.