Spoiler warning: The answers to the Friday, May 23, 2025 NYT Mini Crossword are below. The clue and solution list is reported by Forbes; the New York Times Help Center source cited here explains archive access but does not independently confirm this puzzle’s grid.
Across clues and answers
- “Chooses to receive marketing emails, with ‘in’” — OPTS
- “Buck ___, first Black coach in Major League Baseball (1962)” — ONEIL
- “Like your epidermis?” — SKINNY
- “Like the element Fe?” — IRONY
- “Quite a lot of” — MANY
These are the Across clues and spellings printed in Forbes’ May 22, 2025 answer guide. The numbering follows clue starts in the grid, so the printed Across list skips numbers between entries.
Down clues and answers
- “Bulb in the kitchen” — ONION
- “Like an ink-filled writing tool?” — PENNY
- “Microscopic” — TINY
- “Acting deviously” — SLY
- “Green gumbo ingredient” — OKRA
- “___ card (smartphone chip)” — SIM
The same Forbes guide supplies the Down solutions.
The related wordplay in SKINNY, PENNY and IRONY
Forbes Senior Contributor Paul Tassi groups SKINNY, PENNY and IRONY as answers linked by their clues: epidermis points to skin, an ink-filled writing tool points to a pen, and Fe is the chemical symbol for iron. The guide calls them a common theme but does not give the puzzle a formal theme name, so these are best understood as a related wordplay trio.
How to find the puzzle in the NYT archive
The New York Times Help Center’s Crossword Archive instructions say to choose Daily or Mini, select a month and year, then choose a puzzle. The Help Center says Games and All Access subscribers can use the archive, while people without those subscriptions have limited access; subscription terms can change.
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Forbes describes the Mini as free to play on the NYT website or NYT Games app and says earlier archive puzzles require an NYT Games subscription. That access detail is Forbes’ description; the official Help Center is the source for the archive navigation and its summary of subscription-based access.
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