Free daily crosswords

The Mini Crossword is a five-by-five grid in the American style. Every white square belongs to an across answer and a down answer, so the grid locks together tightly and most days take only a few minutes. Easy days have six black squares and the most direct clues; harder days open the grid up and lean on trickier clues.

The Daily Crossword is a 13 × 13 grid in the British blocked style, the kind found in many newspapers. Every other letter of each answer is shared with a crossing answer, and the answers run from four to eleven letters. The clues are plain definitions rather than cryptic puzzles, so all you need is a good vocabulary and a little patience.

Every clue is written for this site. Most are short definitions; some are fill-in-the-blanks, like a well-known phrase with a word missing, and the few that play with words end in a question mark. On easy days you get the most direct clue for each answer, on hard days a less obvious one. No answer comes back within thirty days in the same game, and clues avoid obscure crossword-only words.

Both grids are timed and ranked on the daily leaderboard. The clock starts when you press Start and pauses whenever you leave the page. When every square is filled the grid is checked for you, without saying where any mistake is. If you get stuck, Check marks wrong letters and Reveal shows a letter or a whole answer: a helped grid still counts for your streak and statistics, it just isn’t ranked. Missed a day? The archive keeps both crosswords for 60 days.