Looking for Friday’s Strands hints, spangram and answers? You can find them here:
Spring is here at last! It’s lovely outside, which makes all this sitting at a desk and writing a bit more challenging than usual, though I can also detect a very distinct boost in my mood.
I’m also happy to have another week of writing these “Strands” guides, taking the baton from my colleague Paul Tassi and later handing it to my colleague Kris Holt as we are on a weekly rotation for this game. I also write daily Wordle guides here on this blog as well as a weekend streaming guide with all the best new TV shows and movies, the latest of which you can check out right here.
Today’s New York Times Strands puzzle is a really fun one, though a bit tricky until you realize what the theme is actually hinting at. Hopefully my extra hint below will help you figure out the grid without using up hints in the game itself. I know I was a bit puzzled until things clicked for me today.
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.
What Is Today’s Strands Hint?
Scroll slowly! Just after the hint for today’s Strands puzzle, I’ll reveal what the answer words are.
The official theme hint for today’s Strand puzzle is: Group think
Here’s an extra hint to help guide you to the solution: Are you ready to rock?
What Are Today’s Strands Answers?
Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Strands answers.
I’ll first tell you the spangram and show you where that is on the grid. I’ll then tell you the other words and show you how they fit in.
This is your final warning!
Today’s Strands spangram is . . .
ROCKBANDS
Here’s where the Spangram is on the grid:
Once you find the Spangram it’s typically pretty easy to find the rest of the day’s words, but I had trouble with a couple of these. Here’s the full list:
- Queen
- Rush
- Nirvana
- Poison
- Heart
- Journey
- Oasis
Today’s Strands Breakdown
I searched for a pretty long time before finding my first word. I knew that ‘QU’ had to be a thing, so I followed that to QUEEN and then remained confused. I saw the word ROCK and tried that to no avail. Looking through corners I found RUSH and then everything clicked together. I went back to ROCK and sure enough, it led to the SPANGRAM, ROCKBANDS.
From here I quickly found NIRVANA and then POISON was a cinch. The next three (out of 8 words today) were tricky. After a bit I found HEART but even still it took a bit of puzzling to snag JOURNEY and even though it was the last word, OASIS was still a bit of a challenge. All those vowels!
This makes me think of the movie School Of Rock with Jack Black which, if you haven’t seen it already, you really should watch.
How did you do on your Strands today? Let me know on Twitter and Facebook.
Be sure to check out my blog for my daily Wordle guides as well as all my other writing about TV shows, streaming guides, movie reviews, video game coverage and much more. Thanks for stopping by!
