NYT Strands today — hints, answers and spangram for Wednesday, May 1 (game #59)

NYT Strands homescreen on a mobile phone screen, on a light blue background
(Image credit: New York Times)

New month, same old (relatively new) NYT Strands. That means a 6x8 grid of letters, hidden within which are a number of answers grouped around a theme. It's brought to you by the people behind Wordle and Connections, and it's rather difficult. Read on for some hints.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

Your Strands expert
Marc McLaren
Your Strands expert
Marc McLaren

Marc is TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief and has been obsessed with Wordle and its ilk for more than two years. He's authored dozens of articles on the game for TechRadar, including a daily today's Wordle answer column and a detailed analysis of the most common letters in Wordle in every position. He's also played every Wordle ever and only lost once and yes, he takes it all too seriously.

NYT Strands today (game #59) - hint #1 - today's theme

What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

Today's NYT Strands theme is… A token of our appreciation

NYT Strands today (game #59) - hint #2 - clue words

What are some good clue words today?

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

BIRTH

MOPE

ARROW

SHINE

WIRE

LOWER

NYT Strands today (game #59) - hint #3 - spangram

What is a hint for today's spangram?

Pass go

NYT Strands today (game #59) - hint #4 - spangram position

Where does today's spangram start and end?

Start: top, 4th column

End: bottom, 6th column

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #59) - the answers

NYT Strands answers for game #59 on a blue background

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #59, are…

  • THIMBLE
  • IRON
  • SHIP
  • WHEELBARROW
  • RACECAR
  • PENGUIN
  • SPANGRAM: MONOPOLY

  • My rating: Easy
  • My score: Perfect

I loved MONOPOLY as a kid, although my sisters probably didn't love the zeal with which I would routinely bankrupt them. Anyway, this was a fun Strands puzzle, albeit not too taxing.

Four-letter words are the easiest to find in Strands, so it always helps when there are a couple of them among the answers. The two hidden within today's puzzle – IRON and SHIP – were enough for me to confirm what the theme here was, when added to the hint of 'A token of our appreciation'.

The only issue was that I have no idea what the tokens in MONOPOLY are these days. When did a PENGUIN get added? But finding the spangram was very easy once I knew what I was looking for, and that pointed the way to the likes of THIMBLE and RACECAR once the board had some structure.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.


Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday 30 April, game #58)

  • MAYO
  • TZATZIKI
  • KETCHUP
  • SRIRACHA
  • AIOLI
  • MUSTARD
  • SPANGRAM: CONDIMENT

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's new word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's currently in Beta and 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.

Marc McLaren
Global Editor in Chief

Marc is TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief, the latest in a long line of senior editorial roles he’s held in a career that started the week that Google launched (nice of them to mark the occasion). Prior to joining TR, he was UK Editor in Chief on Tom’s Guide, where he oversaw all gaming, streaming, audio, TV, entertainment, how-to and cameras coverage. He's also a former editor of the tech website Stuff and spent five years at the music magazine NME, where his duties mainly involved spoiling other people’s fun. He’s based in London, and has tested and written about phones, tablets, wearables, streaming boxes, smart home devices, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, games, TVs, cameras and pretty much every other type of gadget you can think of. An avid photographer, Marc likes nothing better than taking pictures of very small things (bugs, his daughters) or very big things (distant galaxies). He also enjoys live music, gaming, cycling, and beating Wordle (he authors the daily Wordle today page).

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