Strands

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A themed word search where words bend and every letter belongs to one of them.

Play Strands

on nytimes.com

App Store screenshot of a Strands board on a tablet: the clue Easy as Pie above a six by eight letter grid with theme words in blue and the spangram in yellow, and a Hint button below

Strands is a daily word search on a six-by-eight grid of letters. You get a short clue to the theme, then trace words that twist in any direction until every letter on the board is used. One special word, the spangram, names the theme and stretches from one side of the grid to the other.

About Strands

Strands is the New York Times' take on the word search. The idea was pitched by Juliette Seive, the Times' games research director, at the paper's yearly game jam, and the game opened in beta on March 4, 2024. Tracy Bennett, who also edits Wordle, edits the puzzles.

Each day you see 48 letters and a clue that hints at the theme, often with a pun in it. You drag through adjacent letters, in any direction including diagonals, to spell a word. Theme words turn blue when you find them. The spangram, a word or phrase that sums up the theme, turns yellow and always touches two opposite edges of the board. Words never overlap, so by the end every letter has been used exactly once.

Words that are not part of the theme still count for something: find three of them and you earn a hint that lights up the letters of one theme word. That makes Strands gentler than Connections when you are stuck, but the theme clue can be cryptic, and working out what the puzzle is about is half the fun.

It suits people who enjoy word searches but want more thinking than scanning, and it pairs well with Wordle and Connections for a short morning set.

How to play Strands

Read the theme clue above the grid.
Drag across touching letters, in any direction, to spell a word of four or more letters.
Theme words turn blue and stay on the board; the spangram turns yellow.
Spell three other valid words to fill the hint meter, then press Hint to see the letters of one theme word.
Keep going until every letter in the grid belongs to a found word.

Screenshots

App Store screenshot of Strands in the NYT Games phone app: the theme Easy as Pie over a solved letter grid with blue theme words and a yellow spangram

Tips

Look at the corners and edges first; letters there have fewer neighbours, so the words through them are easier to pin down.
Try to find the spangram early; once you know the theme, the other words get much easier.
Long non-theme words still count toward hints, so spell anything you see when you are stuck.
Remember the spangram touches two opposite sides, top to bottom or left to right.
The clue is often a pun; read it again after your first theme word.