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

ForbesToday’s NYT Mini Crossword clues and answers for Thursday, September 19From Eric Kain

Here we are again, Friday! The weekend is just around the corner and with it the peak of the difficulty of the Saturday crossword puzzle. In theory, it gets a little trickier every day from Sunday onwards, so today’s mini is supposedly the second hardest of the week. We’ll see if that’s the case with today’s puzzle too.

The NYT Mini is a smaller, faster, more digestible and bite-sized version of the larger and more challenging NYT Crossword, and unlike its bigger brother, it’s free to play, with no New York Times subscription required. You can play it on the web or via the app, although you’ll need the app to edit the archive.

Of course, spoilers follow. Skip ahead to see all the answers and a picture of today’s completed puzzle.

ABOVE

1 — See who gets there the fastest — RACE

5 — Comedian Sandler —ADAM

6 — Acronym for a pro-housing movement — YIMBY

8 — Fencing Sword — EPEE

9 – Organization that certifies food as “organic” – USDA

DOWN

1 — Sunbeam — RAY

2 — French Farewell — ADIEU

3 — Places where insect juice is served and color wars are fought — CAMPS

4 — Plant deep (inside) — EMBEDDING

7 — Opposite of no — YES

This was much easier than I expected. The words I wasn’t sure about I was able to fill in by simply filling in others. One of the difficult ones was “acronym for a pro-housing movement,” which I couldn’t remember. YIMBY stands for “Yes in my backyard” and is a direct response to NIMBY – the “Not in my backyard” people. I also couldn’t remember what a fencing sword is and initially guessed FOIL, even though I was pretty sure that wasn’t right. The bug juice confused me for a moment, but I had “C” and “A” from RACE and ADAM and CAMPS flowed naturally from there. I finished today’s mini crossword in 1:21. How did it go? Let me know on ÞjórsárdenInstagram or Facebook.

If you play Wordle, I write guides for that too. You can find those and all my TV guides, reviews and much more here on my blog. Thanks for reading!