"Hold ___ your hat!"

Latest answer — September 04, 2026

5 Down

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Clue explained

ONTO completes the familiar warning “Hold onto your hat!” meaning to hold your hat securely, often because something exciting or turbulent is about to happen. The answer is the preposition in the quoted fill-in-the-blank phrase.

Clue type:
Fill-in-the-blank
A person gripping a hat while standing in strong wind.

NYT Mini Crossword

This clue's Friday, September 04, 2026 appearance

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Across

  1. 1With 6- and 8-Across, face seen in outer space
  2. 4Opposite of tight
  3. 6See 1-Across
  4. 7Directly called out in a post, using an "@"
  5. 8See 1-Across

Down

  1. 1"Eureka" for California, or "Excelsior" for New York
  2. 2Pale with fright
  3. 3Have to have
  4. 4Actor Neeson of "Taken"
  5. 5"Hold ___ your hat!"

The answer to “"Hold ___ your hat!"” in the New York Times Mini crossword is ONTO — a 4-letter word. It most recently appeared in the New York Times Mini crossword on September 4, 2026 at 5-Down. Below you'll find why that fill fits, every other answer we've recorded for this clue, and links into the puzzle it came from.

“"Hold ___ your hat!"” answer

ONTO (4 letters)

Use the reveal tiles above to uncover the solution one letter at a time if you'd rather nudge yourself toward it than see the whole word at once. Prefer the full answer straight away? It's ONTO.

What does ONTO mean?

Reading the plain dictionary sense of ONTO is often the fastest way to see why it answers this clue.

(adposition)

  • expressing the relationship of a set to its image under a mapping when every element of the image set has an inverse image in the first set

When else has “"Hold ___ your hat!"” appeared?

New York Times Mini reuses clues across dates, sometimes with a different answer depending on the grid. Here's where this exact clue has shown up, and what the answer was each time — handy when you're checking whether today's fill is the only one.

September 4, 2026 (most recent) → ONTO. We haven't indexed another appearance of this exact clue yet.

Frequently asked questions

What is the answer to “"Hold ___ your hat!"”?

The answer is ONTO, a 4-letter word. It most recently appeared in the New York Times Mini crossword on September 4, 2026.

How many letters is the answer to “"Hold ___ your hat!"”?

4 letters: ONTO.

When did this clue appear?

Most recently in the New York Times Mini crossword on September 4, 2026, at 5-Down.

Can “"Hold ___ your hat!"” have a different answer?

Yes — New York Times Mini sometimes reuses a clue with a different solution to fit the grid. The answers we've recorded for each date it appeared are listed above when available.

Where can I find the rest of today's NYT Mini answers?

Every clue and answer from that day's puzzle is linked above, and the full grid is on the NYT Mini answers page.

New York Times Mini Crossword is published by The New York Times; WordHint is an independent site and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher.

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