‘Homophone of 4-Across & Homophone of 5-Across’ in NYT Mini Crossword answer and hints

It’s your lucky day—you’re essentially getting four answers in one guide! “The Homophone of 4-Across” and “Homophone of 5-Across” both require prior answers to solve, so let’s go through them, as well as the final solutions themselves.

‘Homophone of 4-Across’ & ‘Homophone of 5-Across’ NYT Mini Crossword clue (Aug. 23) hints

‘Homophone of 4-Across’ hints

The answer to 4-Across is “HEAR,” so let’s use this as the basis for our hints.

• Hint one: It sounds the same.
• Hint two: It’s nearly the same letters.
• Hint three: “____ we stand”
• Hint four: It ends with “E”.

‘Homophone of 5-Across’

5-Across is “SENSE,” so these hints reflect this.

• Hint one: Also pennies.
• Hint two: “Here’s my two _____.”
• Hint three: American money.
• Hint four: It ends with “S.”

‘Homophone of 4-Across’ & ‘Homophone of 5-Across’ answers and explainers

4-Down is “HERE” and 5-Down is “CENTS.”

To clarify, a homophone is a word that sounds exactly the same as another word but is spelled differently.

For “HERE,” it sounds the same as “Hear,” the letters are still quite similar, and “here we stand” is a commonly used phrase.

Whereas “CENTS” are also called pennies. Saying “here’s my two cents” is a way of offering your opinion on a matter, and the word obviously refers to American money.

All answers for NYT Aug. 23 Mini Crossword puzzle

Across

• 1A Good___, bad____ (classic routine) — COP
• 4A Pick up on, as a sound — HEAR
• 5A Pick up on, as a vibe — SENSE
• 6A Actress Ana of “Ugly Betty” — ORTIZ
• 7A Not as much — LESS

Down

• 4D Homophone of 4-Across — HERE
• 5D Do, re, me, fa, ___… — SOL
• 1D Homophone of 5-Across — CENTS
• 2D Fertile area in a desert — OASIS
• 3D Biden’s title, informally — PREZ

Clue difficulty of ‘Homophone of 4-Across’ & ‘Homophone of 5-Across’ explained

If you didn’t solve the initial clues, it makes trying to solve 4-Down and 5-Down almost impossible—unless you solved adjacent clues. It’s hard to gauge double-ended clues such as these, so I’m going to cop out and say this is a four out of five for difficulty because getting at least one of the two original clues should stand you in good stead.

Best games like NYT Mini Crossword puzzle, explained

It’s nearly the weekend, but it’s not time to rest yet—not by a long shot. The LA Times and Washington Post are perfect brain fuel, as are the Strands and Spelling Bee daily word games.