Test your crossword skills with today’s NYT Mini Crossword! This article presents the clues and answers for August 22, 2025. The NYT Mini Crossword is a popular, fast-paced version of the classic New York Times crossword puzzle, appearing daily in many newspapers and online. The difficulty generally increases through the week, with the easiest puzzles on Mondays and the most challenging on Saturdays.
The NYT Mini Crossword provides a daily dose of fun. This smaller version of the NYT Crossword is readily accessible to anyone with a New York Times account. The daily crossword, edited by Joel Fagliano, is usually a 5×5 grid, although sometimes larger 7×7 grids appear, especially on Saturdays. The Mini is designed to be more accessible than the full-sized daily puzzle.
Unlike the full NYT Crossword, the Mini is free to play on the New York Times website or the NYT Games app. However, to access past puzzles, a subscription to NYT Games is necessary. Below are the answers; please scroll slowly if you wish to avoid spoilers.
Here are some helpful tips for tackling the Mini Crossword: start with simpler clues to get a foothold, pay close attention to intersecting letters, don’t hesitate to guess and change it later, rearrange letters to form words, remember that history, geography, and pop culture are common themes, and attempt the puzzle on your own before checking the answers.
Here are the answers to the NYT Mini Crossword for August 22, 2025:
ACROSS:
1A: Places to store shovels and leaf blowers – SHEDS
5A: Coating for Babybel cheese – WAX
6A: “___ vs. Predator” (2004 sci-fi film) – ALIEN
8A: Streaming glitch – LAG
9A: Docking spots – PIERS
10A: Feature of a Southern accent – TWANG
14A: Sweet potato lookalike – YAM
15A: Top-notch, informally – PRIMO
17A: Greenskeeper’s roll of grass – SOD
18A: Campfire remnants – ASHES
DOWN:
1D: Nickname for the Florida Gators football stadium, with “the” – SWAMP
2D: “2001: A Space Odyssey” villain – HAL
3D: Cast out from a country – EXILE
4D: “Uptown Funk” and “Downtown,” for two – SONGS
7D: “Can I bend your ___ for a second?” – EAR
10D: Like an ambitious, competitive personality – TYPEA
11D: Simple-to-play card game for two – WAR
12D: Simple-living sect – AMISH
13D: Shop owner’s stock – GOODS
16D: Barkeep on “The Simpsons” – MOE
The NYT Mini Crossword was introduced on August 24, 2014, with the goal of offering a quicker, simpler, and more accessible puzzle for a broader audience. The Mini is available daily on the NYT website and mobile app, free of charge. Joel Fagliano has been editing the Mini Crossword since 2014.