Mini Crossword: A Quick 5x5 Puzzle, Verified Solvable

---

What is Mini Crossword?

Mini Crossword is a compact version of a traditional crossword: a 5x5 grid with a small number of black squares, five Across clues and Down clues to fill in, and enough overlap between them that solving one word usually gives you a head start on another. It's built to be finished in a few minutes rather than the twenty or more a full-size crossword can take, closer in spirit to the "mini" puzzles found in major newspapers than to a full Sunday-size grid.

What makes this version different from a lot of casual crossword generators online isn't the format, it's how the puzzles are made. Every single one in the rotation was checked by an actual script before it was ever published, confirming that every crossing letter forms a real word in both directions, so you're never stuck on a square because the puzzle itself was broken.

How to play Mini Crossword: a full walkthrough

1. Click any cell or clue to start. Clicking a clue in the Across or Down list highlights that word's cells in the grid and shows the clue text above the board; clicking a cell directly selects whichever word (Across or Down) it belongs to.
2. Type to fill in letters. Typing automatically advances to the next cell in the word you've selected, and Backspace moves you back.
3. Switch direction by clicking the same cell twice. If a cell belongs to both an Across and a Down word, clicking it again toggles which direction is currently selected.
4. Use arrow keys to move around freely. Left, right, up, and down move you cell by cell, switching your selected word automatically as needed.
5. Check your progress without giving anything away. The Check Grid button marks every letter you've filled in so far as right or wrong, without revealing the correct answer for anything you got wrong.
6. Ask for help if you're stuck. Reveal Letter fills in just the single selected cell; Reveal Word fills in the entire word you currently have selected.
7. Finish the grid to see your time. Once every cell is correctly filled, your solve time is recorded, and your best time is saved for next time.

Worked example

Say 1-Across is clued "Put into practice, or ask for a job" in a 5-letter slot. The answer is APPLY, a word that works for both meanings the clue hints at. Because this is a themed intersecting grid, the second letter of 1-Across also has to work as the first letter of 2-Down, so once you're confident in APPLY, you already know 2-Down starts with a P, which narrows down its clue considerably before you've even read it closely. That overlap is the entire mechanic of a crossword: a confirmed letter in one word becomes a constraint that helps solve the next.

Mini Crossword's features, explained

• Clickable clue list: clicking any clue in the Across or Down list jumps the grid directly to that word, so you don't have to hunt for the right starting cell manually.
• Keyboard navigation: typing auto-advances through a word, Backspace steps back, and arrow keys move freely around the grid in any direction.
• Check Grid: marks filled-in letters as correct or incorrect on the spot, letting you catch mistakes without spoiling any answer you haven't tried yet.
• Reveal Letter and Reveal Word: two levels of hint, from a single stuck square to an entire word, for when you want to keep moving without full-on giving up on the puzzle.
• Solve timer and best time: your completion time is tracked each round, and your personal best is saved locally so you can try to beat it.
• Daily lock, Endless variety: the daily puzzle is the same for every player and locks once you've solved it for the day, while Endless mode pulls a fresh puzzle from the full bank any time you want to keep playing.

How we build and verify Mini Crossword's puzzles

Every puzzle in the rotation was constructed and checked by an automated script before publication, not assembled by hand and hoped to be correct. The process worked by taking a large bank of real, clued words and searching for combinations where every letter shared between an Across word and a Down word actually matches a valid word in both directions, only combinations that passed that check became part of the published puzzle bank. That means every crossing letter you'll ever encounter in this puzzle has already been confirmed to form two real words at once, so a puzzle is never unsolvable because of a construction mistake. Puzzles across the site, including this one, are built and verified by the Wordle Today team.

The daily puzzle is chosen from the verified bank using a fixed, repeatable method tied to the date, so every player solves the exact same grid on the same day. If any clue is ever found to be unclear or a word miscategorized, we correct it at the source in the puzzle bank rather than patching a single day's version.

Mini Crossword vs. other crossword formats

• Vs. a full-size daily crossword: a standard 15x15 crossword can easily take twenty minutes or more and often leans on obscure trivia. A 5x5 mini is built for a five-minute session with a much smaller, more approachable clue set.
• Vs. other online mini crossword generators: many auto-generated crossword tools don't verify their grids before publishing, which can produce an intersection where one direction's word doesn't actually check out. Every puzzle here was verified with an automated script before it was added to the bank specifically to avoid that.
• Vs. the site's Wordle-style games: Wordle Today, Category Wordle, Sedecordle Plus, and Word Connect are all built around finding hidden words through repeated guessing or letter manipulation. Mini Crossword instead uses clues and grid logic, a different kind of puzzle-solving that rewards vocabulary and inference over pattern elimination.

Strategy: how to solve faster

• Start with the clue you're most confident about. A confirmed word gives you free letters in every word that crosses it, so solving your strongest clue first speeds up everything downstream.
• Use crossing letters as a filter. If you've got a letter locked in from a crossing word, use it to rule out answers for the clue you're currently stuck on rather than starting from scratch.
• Don't be afraid of Reveal Letter on a single tough square. Revealing one letter in an otherwise-solved word is often enough to make the answer click, without spoiling the rest of the puzzle.
• Read short clues carefully. In a 5x5 grid, clues are often short and can carry double meanings (like "Put into practice, or ask for a job" both pointing at APPLY), don't lock onto the first interpretation if it isn't fitting the crossing letters.
• Use Check Grid before assuming you're stuck. Sometimes a single wrong letter early on is throwing off everything that crosses it, checking your grid can isolate exactly which square to fix.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Committing to a word before checking the crossing letters. A word that fits the clue but not the letters already confirmed by a crossing word is still wrong, always check both directions.
• Overusing Reveal Word. It's there for when you're genuinely stuck, but revealing full words repeatedly skips past the actual solving, using Reveal Letter first is usually enough to get unstuck.
• Forgetting the daily puzzle locks after solving. If you want to keep playing after finishing the daily puzzle, switch to Endless mode rather than expecting the same puzzle to reset.

Glossary

• Across / Down: the two directions a word can run in the grid; many cells belong to one of each.
• Crossing letter: a letter shared between an Across word and a Down word at their intersection.
• Check Grid: the feature that marks filled letters correct or incorrect without revealing unattempted answers.
• Reveal Letter / Reveal Word: hint options that fill in one square or one full word.
• Daily lock: the state where the day's puzzle can no longer be replayed once solved, resetting the next calendar day.
• Endless mode: unlimited randomly selected puzzles from the verified bank, playable any time.

Play Mini Crossword now

Scroll to the grid above (or below, depending on your page layout) to start today's puzzle.

More word games on Wordle Today

If you finish today's puzzle and want something different, try one of the other free games on the site:

• Wordle Today: the classic daily 5-letter word puzzle.
• Category Wordle: themed Wordle puzzles across six categories, with a fresh word per theme every day.
• Word Connect: spell every hidden word in a letter circle, with a bonus "golden word" and daily trivia.
• Sedecordle Plus: solve 4, 8, or 16 Wordle boards at once with a single guess.
• Word Unscrambler: type any letters and see every real word they can form.

---

Frequently asked questions