Puzzle guides › Mini Crossword
Crossword tips for beginners: how to read the clues
Crossword clues follow conventions that experienced solvers know by heart. Once you learn them, even a blank grid starts to give up its answers. All examples are clues we've written for our mini crosswords.
The golden rule: the clue and the answer match
A clue and its answer can always swap places in a sentence. That means they share the same part of speech, tense and number:
- "Spoke" (past tense) → SAID, not SAY.
- "Lightly knocks" (third person) → TAPS, not TAP.
- "Lumberjacks' tools" (plural) → AXES, not AXE.
Before you think about meaning, check the form. It cuts the possibilities in half.
Common clue types
Fill in the blank
"___ upon a time..." → ONCE. "Are we there ___?" → YET. These are the easiest clues in any puzzle. Solve all of them first to get letters in the grid.
Definitions
"Not wet" → DRY. "Fury" → ANGER. Most clues are a plain synonym or short definition.
Examples, flagged with "say" or "for example"
"Candy or a cookie, say" → TREAT. "2:1, for example" → RATIO. "Say" and "for example" tell you the clue is an example of the answer, not a definition of it.
Abbreviations and other languages
If the clue is short or has a tag like "(prefix)" or "in Spanish", the answer follows suit: "Very small (prefix)" → MICRO, "Love, in Spanish" → AMOR.
Quotation marks
A clue in quotes is something a person might say: "What a ___!" → SHAME. Think about the spoken phrase.
Strategy for a 5×5 mini
- Read every clue once quickly. Fill in only what you're sure of.
- Work from the crossings. In a mini, every letter belongs to an across word and a down word. One solved across word gives you the first letter of up to five down words.
- Guess with the grid, not the clue. If a down answer is _ _ R _ _ and the clue is about a sea creature, it's probably CORAL.
- Don't be afraid to erase. A wrong answer that doesn't fit its crossings is the most common reason people get stuck.
Short words every solver should know
Three- and four-letter words with friendly letters show up again and again because they're easy to fit in a grid. Learning them is the fastest way to improve:
| Answer | Typical clue |
|---|---|
| ERA | Period of history |
| ORE | Mined rock with metal in it |
| ALOE | Soothing plant gel |
| AREA | Length times width |
| EDEN | Garden of Genesis |
| IDEA | Light-bulb moment |
| ODE | Poem of praise |
| EMU | Large flightless Australian bird |
| TEE | Golf ball holder |
How to get faster
Speed comes from recognizing clue types, not from knowing more words. Play the daily mini every day for a couple of weeks and you'll notice your time dropping as the patterns become automatic. Try finishing one without Check or Reveal: your shared result will say "with no help".