New Delhi, June 15 -- Monday morning has a way of asking something of you before the coffee even kicks in. For millions of daily solvers, that ask comes in the form of a New York Times Mini Crossword, the deceptively compact five-by-five grid that has quietly become one of the most-played daily puzzles in the world. Monday's edition almost always skews accessible, and June 15, 2026, is no exception. But accessible does not mean automatic, and today's grid carries a clever structural trick that caught more than a few solvers off guard before they spotted it.

PUT. That root carries through four answers, threading itself from 1-Across straight down into 1-Down, and the wordplay compounds from there. Once a solver identifies the theme, the t...