NYT Mini Crossword Answers and Hints for Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026: All 10 Clues and Two Matching Music Genres

The New York Times (NYT) Mini Crossword for Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026, is a five-by-five grid with 10 clues by Christina Iverson, and two of its Across answers are music genres that start and end with the same letters. Joel Fagliano edited it. Below is a hint for every clue, then the full answers in a marked spoiler section.

Hints for every clue

Across

• 1-Across (4 letters), Music genre for Joni Mitchell or Woody Guthrie: acoustic guitars and storytelling.
• 5-Across (5 letters), Flood embankment: a raised bank along a river.
• 6-Across (5 letters), “That is to say …”: two words you say before rephrasing yourself.
• 7-Across (4 letters), Music genre with the same first and last letters as 1-Across: think James Brown and a heavy bass groove.
• 8-Across (3 letters), Hosp. areas that are usually on the ground floor: where ambulances pull up, in plural shorthand.

Down

• 1-Down (5 letters), Strongest bone in the human body: the thigh bone.
• 2-Down (5 letters), Array in a culinary classroom: what students bake in.
• 3-Down (4 letters), Plumbing problem: a slow drip.
• 4-Down (3 letters), He’s a doll!: Barbie’s companion.
• 5-Down (4 letters), Magazine whose cover featured Elizabeth Taylor a record 14 times: a classic photo weekly with a one-word name.

Solving tips

Start with the bone at 1-Down: once its first letter is in, 1-Across follows, and 7-Across shares that genre’s first and last letters, so two answers come almost at once. The three-letter entries at 4-Down and 8-Across fill the right side, and the plumbing clue at 3-Down confirms the middle.

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More of today’s puzzles: Wordle hints, Connections hints, Strands hints, Spelling Bee hints and Pips hints.

Today’s NYT Mini answers (spoilers)

Stop here if you still want to solve it yourself.

Clue	Answer
1-Across	Folk
5-Across	Levee
6-Across	I mean
7-Across	Funk
8-Across	ERs
1-Down	Femur
2-Down	Ovens
3-Down	Leak
4-Down	Ken
5-Down	Life

Folk at 1-Across and Funk at 7-Across both start with F and end with K, the link the 7-Across clue points to. The answers come from the puzzle’s official data.