Need a bit of help with NYT Strands today? No shame in that, and you've come to the right place. Below, we've compiled some useful hints for Strands #52, as well as the answers, should it come to that.
We'll start off with some clues, before building up to the full answer for Strands #52, so read on if you need a little help.
Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #52.
Today's NYT Strands answer — Today's theme and hints
The official theme for NYT Strands #52 is... "This is a puzzle".
And here's an unofficial hint from me: Mind games.
If you're still in the dark, here are some useful words to give you those valuable clue tokens:
- MASTERY
- SQUARE
- DARE
- MAGE
- RATES
- DRUM
Still struggling? The spangram will give you a hint about the connection word. Today, it starts with 'B' and ends with 'S'.
Scroll down to find out what it is...
It's BRAINTEASERS.
Today's Strands answers
So, what are today's Strands answers for game #52?
Drumroll, please...
- MYSTERY
- CONUNDRUM
- QUANDARY
- ENIGMA
- RIDDLE
...and the spangram was BRAINTEASERS.
Clues used: 0.
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Hey Strands fans. I'd say this is the toughest puzzle I've had so far, in my short time covering Strands. That's probably because there are only five words in there, but also due to a misunderstanding of how the spangram works on my part.
I'll get to that in a moment, because it actually took me a while to find anything. When I saw the theme, I assumed I'd be looking for things like 'crossword' and 'sudoko' rather than generic kinds of puzzle.
But I eventually spotted MYSTERY coiled around the bottom left-hand corner and I was away.
I quickly noticed BRAINTEASER to its right, but the puzzle wouldn't accept it. That's because I took the wrong route, spelling it by going East at the 'S', rather than South West, and crucially missing out a second 'S' to make it a plural.
Still, it made me work around it, and I saw that I could spell out CONUNDRUM in the bottom right-hand corner, and then I noticed QUANDERY near the top and added that.
ENIGMA followed, and these clues combined revealed I was on the right track with BRAINTEASERS before. I didn't realize that a spangram only has to touch two sides of the board, and not necessarily finish there, otherwise I'd have looked a bit harder before!
Only one word was left: I connected RIDDLE in the top right-hand corner and finished the toughest puzzle yet without clues.
Yesterday's Strands answers
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Strands answers for game #51.
- PECAN
- BUTTER
- SUGAR
- VANILLA
- SYRUP
- FLOUR
- SALT
...and the spangram was INGREDIENTS.
Clues used: 0.
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Hi Strands fans. Nothing too taxing here, thanks to the big glaring clue in the theme. "As easy as pie" had me thinking about pie filling from the get-go, and it didn't take me long to spot both PECAN and BUTTER along the right-hand side. SUGAR is another key ingredient in a pecan pie, so I nabbed that too.
That got me thinking that INGREDIENTS might be the spangram itself, and it was indeed. An 11-letter word is long for a spangram, and it certainly snakes around the board going from the middle of the bottom row to the top-right corner.
So what else is in a pecan pie? VANILLA was in the top left corner, and then I spotted SYRUP. You can't make a pie without FLOUR, which I spotted in the bottom left, and that left just SALT to go.
