NYT Strands Today – Clues, Spangram and Answers for Game #281 (Monday December 9, 2024)

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Need help with NYT Strands today? Today’s topic – “Quiet First” – may be the most difficult puzzle yet.

Below we’ve put together some useful hints for Strands #281, as well as answers should it come to that. We’ll start with some hints before moving on to the full answer for Strands #281. So read on if you need a little help.

Warning: There are spoilers for Strands #281.

Today’s Answer from NYT Strands – Today’s Topic and Notes

The official theme for NYT Strands #281 is… “First, calm.”

And here’s another unofficial tip from me: “Strange spellings”.

If you are still in the dark, here are some useful words that will give you the valuable clue tokens:

MELON
MONEY
Stroller
PASTY
LEMON
SOUND
PALM TREES
ENEMY
THRONE

Are you still having problems? The Spangram gives you a clue to the connecting word. Today it starts with “S” and ends with “R”.

Scroll down to find out what it is…

It’s SILENTLETTER.

Today’s Strands Answers

So what are today’s Strands answers for game #281?

Drum roll please…

WRAP
GNOMES
PSALM
HONESTY
ANKLE
MNEMONIC

Strands No. 281

(Image credit: Alan Martin)

…and the Spangram was SILENTLETTER.

Strands No. 281

“Quiet first.”

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Hello Strands fans. This was the most difficult puzzle for me so far.

As you can see from the huge list of clue words I came up with while figuring it out, this one kept me guessing until the very end – until then I really couldn’t see any connection between the answers and used four clues to even get to that point .

I needed three of them to get going. Each revelation brought a seemingly completely unrelated answer. I couldn’t see what WRAP, GNOME and PSALM had in common anyway.

Still, I was able to begin searching for possible answers after taking a number of characters off the table. I found HONESTY written from the right side down to the middle, followed by KNUCKLE above it.

At this point I had to use a different clue. It revealed a word that I simply would never have understood otherwise: MNEMONIC.

This paved the way for the Spangram, which turned out to be SILENTLETTER. Naturally! The meaning of the answers may be completely unrelated, but each begins with a silent letter.

Well done if you connected immediately. As for me, this is a puzzle that made me feel incredibly stupid.

Yesterday’s Strands answers

Are you reading this in a later time zone? The full article on yesterday’s Strands responses can be found here Game #280 here.

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NYT Strands Today – Clues, Spangram and Answers for Game #281 (Monday December 9, 2024)

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