Dellupodisabato

ForbesFrom Paul Tassi

Deeply difficult puzzle today, no exaggeration. One of the hardest I have ever done as it borderline doesn’t use actual words. You’ll see.

The New York Times’ strands Puzzle is a classic word search game. It’s currently in beta, meaning it won’t last unless enough people play it every day.

There’s a new game strands to play every day. The game presents you with a letter grid of six by eight letters. The goal is to find a group of words that have something in common and give you a clue as to what the topic is. When you find a topic word, it remains highlighted in blue.

You also need to find a special word called Spangram. This will tell you what the words have in common. The spangram connects two opposite sides of the board. While the topic words are not a proper noun, the spangram can be a proper noun. When you find the spangram, it will remain highlighted in yellow.

Each letter is used once in one of the topic words and in the Spangram. You can connect letters vertically, horizontally and diagonally and change direction in the middle of a word. If you’re playing on a touchscreen, double tap the last letter to submit your guess.

If you find three valid words of at least four letters that are not part of the topic, you’ll unlock the Hint button. Clicking on it will highlight the letters that make up one of the topic words.

Be warned: you must be on your guard. Sometimes you’ll need to fill the missing word(s) in a sentence. Other days the game might revolve around synonyms or homophones. The difficulty varies from day to day and the puzzle creators will sometimes try to surprise you.

What is today’s Strands clue?

Combinations

What are today’s Strands answers?

PORTMANTEAUX

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky And Instagram.

Get my science fiction novels Herokiller series And The Earthborn Trilogy.