NYT Mini Crossword — August 4, 2026
Hints — one at a time
Hint 1 of 5
Today's grid is fully open with no black squares, so every row and every column is its own complete five-letter word crossing all the others.
Hint 2 of 5
The top of the grid warms up with a word for laboring hard, followed by the sound half of an audio-visual pairing.
Hint 3 of 5
Midway through, think of pests hovering near a garbage can, and a sitcom prop that always hid a neighbor's face over a backyard barrier.
Hint 4 of 5
The down side includes a politician's clumsy public misstep and an enthusiastic verdict that something was excellent.
Hint 5 of 5
Finish with a bouncer's nightly task of checking identification, a sibling of one's nephew, units used to measure a vaccine, and a word for the outer limits of something.
The answer — spoilers!
Reveal the full answer
- Put in persistent hard work — GRIND
- The "A" of A/V — AUDIO
- Buzzers by the trash — FLIES
- What was always seen blocking Wilson's face, on "Home Improvement" — FENCE
- Outer boundaries — EDGES
- Politician's stumble — GAFFE
- Was totally awesome — RULED
- What bar bouncers spend all night doing — IDING
- Nephew's sister — NIECE
- Units of a vaccine — DOSES
This puzzle by the numbers
- 5 across, 5 down
- GRIND (5)
Counted from our own archive of NYT Mini Crossword answers — not published anywhere else.
