NYT Mini Crossword Answers Yesterday (October 19, 2026)

You finished it late and want to check

Compare row by row rather than clue by clue. Read each Across answer in the grid above against your own; if every row matches, every Down answer matches too, because the Downs are made of the same squares. Where a row differs, the clue list shows which entry is wrong.

A common near-miss is a phrase answer you entered with a different word: OPENBAR and ARTGALA on 17 October 2026 are the kind of entries that can be almost right. The grid is the reference.

One clue beat you

Find it in the clue list, which runs Across then Down in number order. If the answer still does not make sense, the clue is probably one of the Mini's recurring tricks. A question mark at the end means wordplay — "Old-fashioned business?" on 8 October was BAR: an Old Fashioned is a cocktail, and a bar is the business that serves it. A clue that names another answer ("See 4-Across") only works alongside it. Two identical clues in one grid have two different answers.

Abbreviations are signalled in the clue itself: "Abbr.", "for short" and "familiarly" all mean the answer is shortened too. "Creatures on U.F.O.s, for short" on 26 September was ETS.

You missed the day entirely

The grid above is the complete puzzle, so it can be read as a finished crossword. For the Saturday grids — 7×7, with 14 to 18 clues in the four Saturdays from 26 September to 17 October 2026 — that is a fair bit of reading. Weekday and Sunday grids are smaller, ten or eleven clues.

If you missed more than one day, the Mini archive has every date HintSheet has published, newest first, one click each.

Checking a Saturday grid

Saturday's 7×7 is the grid people most often abandon, so it is the one most often looked up the next day. The 17 October 2026 puzzle, by Sam Ezersky, shows how to check one quickly. Its top four rows were complete seven-letter words — CLASSIC, RICOTTA, OPENBAR and ARTGALA — and the bottom three were each split by a black square into pairs of three-letter answers: TIO and RIM, INN and TAE, AGE and SNL.

Check the four long rows first. If they match, the seven Down answers are almost certainly right as well, because each of them — CROATIA, LIPRING, ACETONE, SONG, STBARTS, ITALIAN and CARAMEL — starts in that block. Then check the six short answers at the bottom, which is where wrong guesses usually sit.

If yesterday was a six-by-five

Some days the grid is six squares wide instead of five, with an extra Down clue. The 16 October 2026 puzzle was one: its rows read LAVA, STOPIT, POSTIT, AMELIA and RESY, with two black squares at the top left and two at the bottom right, and six Down answers — LOSES, APTLY, VIII, ATTA, SPAR and TOME. When you check a grid like this, count the squares in each row before comparing letters; a six-letter answer squeezed into five squares is the usual mistake.

Seven days of Minis

For reference, here is the most recent full week in our data, so you can see what a week of puzzles looks like before opening the archive:

Last week in single clues

One clue from each of several recent Minis, to give a feel for the range a single week covers:

• 13 October — "One might have a litter ... or use it": CAT (Wyna Liu).
• 14 October — "Tiny creature that feeds the world's largest creature": KRILL (Joel Fagliano).
• 15 October — "Throw hard, in Gen Z slang": YEET (Sam Ezersky).
• 16 October — "How sprinter Usain Bolt is named": APTLY (Joel Fagliano).
• 18 October — "Facial features missing from most emojis": NOSES (Joel Fagliano).
• 19 October — "Number of clues in this puzzle": TEN (Ian Livengood).

What "yesterday" means here

Yesterday is the puzzle date before today's in New York time. The page follows the Times' calendar, not your local clock, so outside the Eastern time zone the switch happens at a different hour of your day. HintSheet never publishes a date's Mini before midnight Eastern on that date, so the newest puzzle reaches the answers page first and this page a day later.

When an answer comes back

Short grids reuse words, usually under a new clue. In the four weeks to 20 October 2026 four answers appeared twice. SNARE was "Rattling kind of drum" on 24 September and "Part of a drum kit" on 7 October. ROLEX was "Watch brand with a crown logo" on 28 September and "Fancy watch brand" on 15 October. STACK was "Pile of pancakes" on 30 September and "Orderly pile" on 10 October. LOSES was "Goes down in defeat" on 5 October and "Takes the L" on 16 October.

If yesterday's answer looks familiar, that is probably why — and it is worth remembering, because the next time it appears the clue will likely be different again.

The byline under the grid

Every Mini credits its constructor, and the name is shown with the grid above. In the 28 puzzles from 23 September to 20 October 2026 there were five: Joel Fagliano, the Mini's editor according to Wikipedia, with 13; Sam Ezersky with 7; Ian Livengood, who also edits the Times' Midi, with 4; Christina Iverson with 3; and Wyna Liu with 1. Saturdays in that window were split between Sam Ezersky (two), Joel Fagliano and Ian Livengood.

Seen this answer before?

Probably. Short grids reuse short words. In the four weeks to 20 October 2026, SNARE, ROLEX, STACK and LOSES each appeared twice. The clues changed even when the answers did not, which is a useful habit to notice: a familiar five-letter word can arrive under a very different definition.

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