Today's New York Times Mini Crossword Puzzle Solutions for December 13th's Challenge
At long last, it's Friday, and this is my final NYT Mini Crossword guide for a while. It's been an intense week, culminating in The Game Awards and some fantastic announcements on Thursday night. Let's dive into this puzzle!
The NYT Mini is a more compact, faster, and easier-to-digest version of the larger and more challenging NYT Crossword. Unlike its bigger sibling, the Mini is free to play, no subscription to The New York Times required. You can play it online or through the app, but you'll need the app to access the archive.
Here are the answers to today's Mini Crossword:
Spoilers ahead!
ACROSS
1 — Spread out, like one's fingers — FAN OUT
6 — Extensive cloud of smoke — BURST
7 — Subway fares — TICKETS
8 — Type of serene garden having a bonsai tree — JAPANESE
9 — "Could I, perhaps, ...?" — MAYBE I COULD
DOWN
1 — Sunscreen score on a Hawaiian Tropic bottle — SPF
2 — New York hotel from "Home Alone 2," starting with "The" — PLCOMPLAZA
3 — Draw in with bait — LURE IN
4 — Change, as the Constitution — ALTER
5 — Answer to roughly 3.6% of Harvard's 2028 applicants — ACCEPT
Today's Mini wasn't exceedingly challenging, mainly because the starting words were relatively simple, allowing most of the harder words to be filled in. I wasn't sure about FAN OUT, but it turned out to be correct. BURST and TICKETS followed, and I had hoped for a KOI garden but ended up with JAPANESE instead. Once that was filled in, the rest of the puzzle snapped into place. This one took me 1:10.
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This Friday's NYT Mini Crossword shares similarities with its larger counterpart but is more compact and straightforward, requiring no subscription. Available online or via the app, the Mini provides access to archived puzzles through the app. The crossword's clue for a 'kind of garden with a bonsai tree' is 'JAPANESE'. Having completed the puzzle, it revealed that 'spread out, like one's fingers' is 'FAN OUT' and the 'answer to roughly 3.6% of Harvard's 2028 applicants' is 'ACCEPT'. For those seeking help, 'nyt mini crossword hints' and 'nyt mini crossword answers' are readily available online.
