Looking for Sunday’s Strands hints, spangram and answers? You can find them here:
Sort of a weird Strands theme today that seems overly broad, especially with the spangram, but it’s not as much so as you’d think.
How To Play Strands
The New York Times’ Strands puzzle is a play on the classic word search. It’s in beta for now, which means it’ll only stick around if enough people play it every day.
There’s a new game of Strands to play every day. The game will present you with a six by eight grid of letters. The aim is to find a group of words that have something in common, and you’ll get a clue as to what that theme is. When you find a theme word, it will remain highlighted in blue.
You’ll also need to find a special word called a spangram. This tells you what the words have in common. The spangram links two opposite sides of the board. While the theme words will not be a proper name, the spangram can be a proper name. When you find the spangram, it will remain highlighted in yellow.
Be warned: You’ll need to be on your toes.
“Some themes are fill-in-the-blank phrases. They may also be steps in a process, items that all belong to the same category, synonyms or homophones,” The New York Times notes. “Just as she varies the difficulty of Wordle puzzles within a week, [Wordle and Strands editor Tracy] Bennett plans to throw Strands solvers curveballs every once in a while.”
What Is Today’s Strands Hint?
Time to do the NYT hint and then my own hint after that:
On the nature trail
And mine is:
Look down on the walk
Today’s NYT Strands Opening Letters
Here are the first two letters of all the words if you don’t want the entire thing just yet.
What Are Today’s Strands Answers?
Now we begin the answer portion of the program which is the spangram and the full list of the other answers, the spangram is:
SCAVENGER HUNT
Here it is on the page, and read on:
The answers are:
- PUDDLES
- MOSS
- ACORN
- PAWPRINT
- FEATHER
- DAISY
So at first I thought this was just a bunch of random nature words you might find on a hike, and the spangram seems to indicate as much too. But the clue and actual answers go together to form a smaller category of things that you’ll find on the ground, not just everywhere, which is why you see pawprints and feathers. Not all of these are for actual tracking, not sure what a daisy or puddle would track, but it’s all about keeping your eyes down.
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