A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Tuesday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Tuesday, October 21 (game #597).
Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.
Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.
NYT Strands today (game #598) - hint #1 - today's theme
What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?
• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Catch all
NYT Strands today (game #598) - hint #2 - clue words
Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.
- NICE
- POLICE
- WAKE
- SLUM
- MULE
- PATER
NYT Strands today (game #598) - hint #3 - spangram letters
How many letters are in today's spangram?
• Spangram has 10 letters
NYT Strands today (game #598) - hint #4 - spangram position
What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?
First side: left, 6th row
Last side: right, 6th row
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.
NYT Strands today (game #598) - the answers
The answers to today's Strands, game #598, are…
- BATTERY
- COIN
- PENCIL
- SHOELACE
- THUMBTACK
- TAPE
- SPANGRAM: JUNKDRAWER
- My rating: Hard
- My score: Perfect
As I was slowly finding all these words I kept wondering: what is the connection between all of this random stuff. It wasn’t until I finally got the spangram that I realized that random stuff was the connection.
Every home has a JUNKDRAWER, although I think ours contains several – one exclusively dedicated to cables that may or may not belong to devices that were dumped many years ago, but the cables kept.
The others contain items similar to those in today’s search, roughly categorized as “may be useful one day”, although we all know that they never will be and if the day comes when you do need a radiator key, SHOELACE or PENCIL you will not be able to find it in the JUNKDRAWER and will go out and buy a new one instead.
A very tricky game to detect the theme of, but not too tricky in terms of searching and completing. All in all, much like finding exactly what you were looking for in the JUNKDRAWER – oddly satisfying.
Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday, October 21, game #597)
- OPENER
- STAGE
- ENCORE
- HEADLINER
- MERCHANDISE
- SPANGRAM: LIVECONCERT
What is NYT Strands?
Strands is the NYT's not-so-new-any-more word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable that has been running for a year and which can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.
I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.
