If you missed Wednesday’s NYT Mini, you can find the answers here:

ForbesToday’s NYT Mini Crossword Clues and Solutions for Wednesday October 23rdFrom Paul Tassi

Time for another mini as we head towards the end of the week and for some reason my brain was really having a hard time with this one even though looking back I saw a lot of things I didn’t need to miss. But first:

The NYT Mini is a quick-and-dirty version of the newspaper’s larger and longer Rumgys. There are between three and five clues in each direction on a five-by-five grid, but the puzzles are sometimes larger, especially on Saturdays.

Unlike its bigger brother, the NYT Mini Crossword is free to play on the New York Times website or the NYT Games app. However, you will need a NYT Games subscription to access previous puzzles in the archives. The NYT Mini is a fun daily distraction that typically takes no time at all. I’m trying to beat the standard weekday grid in under a minute. But sometimes I can’t quite figure out a clue or two and have to give away the answer.

Spoilers ahead, of course. Skip ahead to see the picture of today’s solved puzzle.

ABOVE

1) Horse foot – hoof

5) More than enough – PLENTY

7) As Films Listed on Rotten Tomatoes – RATING

8) Shy away (from) – PROTECTED

9) What you can make dance by adding a little boogie to it, in an old joke – HANKY

DOWN

1) Some criticism and winter weather – HARD

2) Nebraska’s largest city – OMAHA

3) Agree to receive promotional emails, such as OPTIN

4) On ___ (super stylish, in 2010s slang) – FLEEK

6) Vortex, like water – EDDY

Yes, I found this difficult, I don’t know what to say. One of the things I did wrong was saying “fetch” instead of “fleek” when I was thinking about “Mean Girls,” which I’m pretty sure was coming out at the time. Then I thought the book was fresh on Rotten Tomatoes because it had the right number of letters. That wasn’t it. The boogie joke even made me google this answer, but everyone said “tissue” even though the end result answer was tissue, and that’s a word I haven’t heard in probably two decades. What do you think of this mystery?

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