Welcome to another week of Strands puzzles courtesy of the New York Times. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find the answer words within a grid of letters; think of it as a more complicated wordsearch and you'll be on the right track. It can be quite difficult, so read on if you need 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.
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 #85) - hint #1 - today's theme
What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?
• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Noodle on this one
NYT Strands today (game #85) - hint #2 - clue words
What are some good clue words today?
Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.
• BLOW
• LIPS
• STAIR
• BONE
• STARE
• SPIRE
NYT Strands today (game #85) - hint #3 - spangram
What is a hint for today's spangram?
• A taste of Italy
NYT Strands today (game #85) - hint #4 - spangram position
What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?
• First: right, 2nd row
• Last: left, 4th row
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.
NYT Strands today (game #85) - the answers
The answers to today's Strands, game #85, are…
- SHELL
- WHEEL
- BOWTIE
- TUBE
- SPIRAL
- RIBBON
- ELBOW
- SPANGRAM: PASTASHAPES
- My rating: Moderate
- My score: Perfect
I'm being slightly picky here, but the theme clue of 'Noodle on this one' rather threw me off the scent to start with. In the UK, you'd be very unlikely to hear the word "noodle" applied to pasta, which is fair enough given that almost all of the PASTASHAPES listed in today's Strands puzzle are not noodles. Noodles are long and thin, whereas the likes of SHELL and BOWTIE are clearly not. There are also differences in terms of how noodles and pasta are made, so to me it's like calling a curry a casserole, and I would just never do it.
Anyway, I'm getting a little off topic. The point is that 'Noodle' would never suggest 'pasta' to me, so it took me a while to work out what was going on here. I'd already uncovered SHELL, WHEEL, BOWTIE and TUBE and SPIRAL, all by accident, before the spangram became apparent and it all clicked. The others followed easily, so my game essentially consisted of about 10 minutes of not knowing what was going on, followed by about 30 seconds of finishing the game. On the plus side: I do love pasta, and may well eat it tonight.
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Sunday 26 May, game #84)
- CEASE
- DESIST
- FORGIVE
- FORGET
- DIVIDE
- CONQUER
- SPANGRAM: ACTIONVERBS
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.
