NYT Mini Crossword — August 8, 2026
Hints — one at a time
Hint 1 of 5
Today's grid is wider than a weekday Mini — the Saturday puzzle runs seven by seven, so several answers stretch to six and seven letters.
Hint 2 of 5
An arts thread runs through the across entries: the set of ruled lines a composer writes music on, and the stone that both the Venus de Milo and Michelangelo's David were carved from.
Hint 3 of 5
Food and drink turn up twice more across — a plant-based milk in a short fill-in-the-blank, and what someone orders when they want their meat barely cooked.
Hint 4 of 5
The down half leans on childhood and sulking: a salted square cracker, the picture book that runs from apple all the way to zebra, and what a child does with a stuck-out lower lip.
Hint 5 of 5
Finish with the seabird that helps rescue a lost clownfish, a word for everyone singing the same line at once, a two-word phrase for speaking sincerely, and the three-letter place you'd book for a pampering day out.
The answer — spoilers!
Reveal the full answer
- Five lines on sheet music — STAFF
- Material for the Venus de Milo and Michelangelo's David — MARBLE
- Bird that helps to rescue Nemo in "Finding Nemo" — PELICAN
- ___ milk — OAT
- Pal — BUD
- Collective way of singing — UNISON
- Metal container that's a synonym for "insignificant" — TINPOT
- "Rare" order at a restaurant — STEAK
- Square cracker — SALTINE
- Three: Prefix — TRI
- What often starts with an apple and ends with a zebra — ABCBOOK
- Show off — FLAUNT
- Ward (off) — FEND
- Be sincere — MEANIT
- Throws a hissy-fit — POUTS
- Destination for a mother-daughter day, perhaps — SPA
This puzzle by the numbers
- 8 across, 8 down
- PELICAN (7)
Counted from our own archive of NYT Mini Crossword answers — not published anywhere else.
