NYT Mini Crossword Answers Today, November 10, 2026

Tuesday’s Mini Crossword from the New York Times (NYT), dated Nov. 10, 2026, comes from Joel Fagliano: 10 clues on a 5-by-5 grid with four black squares. Every clue gets a hint below, and each hint opens on a tap. The finished grid waits in the marked spoiler section at the end.

Hints for every clue

Across

• 1-Across (4 letters), ___ as a button

  an adjective for something small and charming; it starts with C and ends with E.

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  Cute
• 5-Across (4 letters), Computer operating system since 1969

  a family of systems whose name is a four-letter coinage; it starts with U and ends with X.

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  Unix
• 6-Across (5 letters), Units of ice cream or beer

  a liquid measure, where two cups make one; it starts with P and ends with S.

  Show the answer

  Pints
• 8-Across (4 letters), Green-skinned monster, perhaps

  a fairy-tale giant with a bad temper; it starts with O and ends with E.

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  Ogre
• 9-Across (4 letters), ___ as a pin

  a word for tidy and well kept; it starts with N and ends with T.

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  Neat

Down

• 1-Down (3 letters), Container for ice cream or beer

  a small drinking vessel, also a baking measure; its middle letter opens 5-Across, and its last letter opens 6-Across.

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  Cup
• 2-Down (5 letters), Worker’s collective

  a group that bargains with an employer for its members; it starts with U and ends with N.

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  Union
• 3-Down (5 letters), Slightest bit of color

  a faint trace of hue, as when a white wall picks up a hint of pink; it starts with T and ends with E.

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  Tinge
• 4-Down (5 letters), Background actor

  a person in the crowd of a film scene who has no lines; it starts with E and ends with A.

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  Extra
• 7-Down (3 letters), Word before ”… go!”

  the middle word of a three-word starting call at a race; it starts with S and ends with T.

  Show the answer

  Set

The countdown clue and the Monday comparison

7-Down is the clue furthest from a plain definition. It gives no meaning at all, only the last word of a phrase and a dotted gap before it. The quotation marks tell you the clue is a spoken line, and the ellipsis says one word is missing right in front of “go”. Think of the three beats said aloud at the start of a sprint, and the answer is the one in the middle. The last letter of 8-Across is this answer’s middle square, which helps.

A smaller echo sits on the left. 1-Down and 6-Across share their wording, “ice cream or beer”, yet one wants a container and the other a unit of measure. They meet at one square, the last of 1-Down and the first of 6-Across.

Here is how today’s grid compares with Monday’s (Nov. 9), counted from the saved puzzle data:

Count	Mon., Nov. 9	Tue., Nov. 10
Black squares	4	4
Where they sit	One in each corner	Two stacked on the right edge at the top, two on the left edge at the bottom
White squares	21	21
Across lengths	3, 5, 5, 5, 3	4, 4, 5, 4, 4
Down lengths	5, 5, 5, 3, 3	3, 5, 5, 5, 3
Three-letter entries	4	2
Four-letter entries	0	4
Five-letter entries	6	4
Entries spanning the full width	3	1
Clues with a question mark	0	0

Both grids hold 10 entries and 21 white squares, and neither has a question-mark clue. The difference is the length mix: Monday had no four-letter entries, while today has four of them, all Across. Only one Across entry, 6-Across, runs edge to edge today; Monday had three. Down entries 2, 3 and 4 run the full height today, the same count as Monday’s first three Down entries.

With 10 clues and 21 white squares today, the rules for a Mini are on our Mini Crossword page.

Mark the solve on the November 2026 printable calendar or the printable weekly calendar.

More for Tuesday, Nov. 10: Wordle hints, Connections hints, Strands hints, Spelling Bee hints and Pips hints. Bigger grids: the Midi answers for Nov. 10 and the daily Crossword answers for Nov. 10. Monday’s grid is in the Mini answers for Nov. 9.

Today’s NYT Mini answers (spoilers)

Stop here if you still want to solve it yourself.

Clue	Answer
1-Across	Cute
5-Across	Unix
6-Across	Pints
8-Across	Ogre
9-Across	Neat
1-Down	Cup
2-Down	Union
3-Down	Tinge
4-Down	Extra
7-Down	Set

The answers come from the puzzle’s official data.

Yesterday's Mini Crossword answer

The Mini on Monday, Nov. 9, 2026: Across 1 Lot, 4 Gourd, 6 Actor, 7 Sadly, 8 Lol; Down 1 Local, 2 Outdo, 3 Troll, 4 Gas, 5 Dry. Yesterday's hints and full solution.