NYT Strands today — hints, answers and spangram for Sunday, May 26 (game #84)

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

And so the weekend comes to an end with another Strands game from the New York Times. It's potentially a tricky beast, as many of them are, so read on if you need some hints for it.  

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 #84) - hint #1 - today's theme

What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

Today's NYT Strands theme is… Beyond Nashville

NYT Strands today (game #84) - hint #2 - clue words

What are some good clue words today?

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

BRAN

SAIL

SULK

BOOK

BROOK

STILL

NYT Strands today (game #84) - hint #3 - spangram

What is a hint for today's spangram?

Walk the line

NYT Strands today (game #84) - hint #4 - spangram position

What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

First: top, 3rd column

Last: bottom, 5th column

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

NYT Strands today (game #84) - the answers

NYT Strands answers for game 84 on a blue background

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #84, are…

  • HILL
  • BROOKS
  • CASH
  • PAISLEY
  • SWIFT
  • URBAN
  • TWAIN
  • SPANGRAM: COUNTRYSTARS

  • My rating: Moderate
  • My score: Perfect

This is one of those Strands games where the theme clue potentially makes it very easy – but where that may not help if you don't know a lot about the subject. The subject in question is COUNTRYSTARS, as per the spangram, though whether Taylor SWIFT can really be described as a country star these days is debatable.

Fortunately for me, I'm a huge Johnny CASH fan, and though none of the other musicians listed here and on my personal playlist, I know enough about the genre that I didn't struggle to find any of them. Maybe I would have done if the spangram hadn't been so easy to locate, but with that in place much of the hard work was done.  

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


Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Saturday 25 May, game #83)

  • TIME
  • STAKE
  • MOOSE
  • LEAK
  • CHILLY
  • MEET
  • PAIR
  • SERIAL
  • SPANGRAM: HOMOPHONES

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).