Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.
Today’s NYT Mini Crossword is fairly easy, especially if you know recent trends in baby names. It also helps to have a slight knowledge of The Lord of the Rings, or at a minimum, be good at riddles. Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.
The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.
Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword
Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.
The completed NYT Mini Crossword puzzle for May 22, 2025.
Mini across clues and answers
1A clue: Part of a fleet
Answer: SHIP
5A clue: Answer to Gollum’s riddle in “The Hobbit,” which starts “This thing all things devours – birds, beasts, trees, flowers”
Answer: TIME
6A clue: “See ya!”
Answer: LATER
7A clue: Second-most popular girl’s name of the 2020s, after Olivia
Answer: EMMA
8A clue: Not keeping secrets
Answer: OPEN
Mini down clues and answers
1D clue: Sticker on an envelope
Answer: STAMP
2D clue: “I’d like another card,” in blackjack
Answer: HITME
3D clue: “Uhh, that is to say …”
Answer: IMEAN
4D clue: The “p” of m.p.h.
Answer: PER
6D clue: Name taken by the new pope
Answer: LEO
How to play more Mini Crosswords
The New York Times Games section offers a large number of online games, but only some of them are free for all to play. You can play the current day’s Mini Crossword for free, but you’ll need a subscription to the Times Games section to play older puzzles from the archives.
