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:

This is not working

And mine is:

Relaxation time

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.

• HO
• RE
• SI
• PA
• IN

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:

JUSTFORFUN

Here it is on the page, and read on:

The answers are:

• HOBBY
• RECREATION
• SIDELINE
• PASTIME
• INTEREST

So, you’re doing a puzzle for fun, where the spangram is JUST FOR FUN and it’s about things you do as hobbies or for recreation. Pretty meta, if I do say so myself. I will say that I have never really heard the word “sideline” used in any context like this. I mean, I get what they’re going for, I’ve just never actually heard that term used before if we’re talking about a hobby or pastime. Just a bit odd, I thought.

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