Today's New York Times Strand Puzzles feature clues and solutions for Friday, June 7th, 2024.
If you're searching for tips and solutions for Strands on Friday, June 7, 2024, keep reading! I'll give you some subtle hints for the answers and finally provide the spangram and the solutions.
Below, I'll offer some indirect clues about today's Strands answers. And farther down the page, I'll disclose the spangram and the responses. Take it slow and only pick up the tips you need!
Attribution: Strands/NYT
Tip for the spangram in today's Strands puzzle
This two-word spangram represents what sorority names are constructed from.
Tip for the theme words in today's Strands puzzle
They could be the fundamental components of sorority names.
WARNING: Spoilers coming for today's Strands puzzle!
We're about to unveil the solutions to today's Strands puzzle.
What is the spangram in today's Strands?
Today's spangram is GREEKLETTERS.
What are the theme words in today's Strands?
The theme words today are: BETA, GAMMA, DELTA, SIGMA, ALPHA, KAPPA, EPSILON.
Behold what the board looks like when the puzzle is solved:
Credit: NYT/Strands
How I cracked today's Strands
The theme prompts me to think I should be searching for words like "gamma" and "theta", referring to the Greek-letter names of sororities and fraternities. There's SIGMA in the bottom left corner, confirming this theory. 🔵
BETA is to the upper left. 🔵
Credit: Strands/NYT
Next to that is the spangram, which spells GREEKLETTERS from top to bottom. 🟡
ALPHA sits to its right. 🔵
Then KAPPA below that. 🔵
And EPSILON below that, wrapping up the right side of the puzzle. 🔵
On the other side of the spangram, I spot GAMMA. 🔵
And to its right, DELTA. 🔵
How to play Strands
You can locate the Strands game on the New York Times website. Strands is still new and in beta, so it's not yet part of the NYT Games app.
When you start playing, you'll see a game board with a variety of letters, accompanied by a clue that offers a hint at the puzzle's theme - this will be a phrase, such as "Better with age." It's your task to find the hidden words within the board that reflect the puzzle's theme.
Strands: A crossword mixed with a word search
The most crucial word to find is the "spangram", a word that more explicitly states the puzzle's theme. (For instance, the spangram for the puzzle with the theme "Better with age" is FERMENTED, which describes products that undeniably improve with age.) The spangram will stretch across the entire game board, either from left to right or top to bottom. When you locate the spangram, it will be highlighted in yellow. Solving the spangram typically makes the rest of the puzzle much simpler.
In Strands, words can move in any direction (up, down, left, right, and diagonal), and you will merely use each letter once. There is only one correct solution. When you correctly identify one of the puzzle's words (for example, KOMBUCHA, MISO, or KIMCHI), it will be highlighted in blue.
If you're struggling to solve the puzzle, you can submit any non-theme words you see (as long as they are at least four letters) to earn credit towards a single hint. If you submit three non-theme words, the "Hint" button will be clickable; if you click it, all of the letters in one of the theme words will be highlighted for you. You still must connect these highlighted letters in the proper order to form one of the theme words. If there is already a hint on the board and you use another hint before resolving that word, that word's letter arrangement will be revealed.
How to win Strands
Unlike Connections and Wordle, you cannot lose at Strands. When you submit guesses, you will either discover an answer, earn credit towards a hint, or the board will shake back and forth, indicating that the word you submitted is too short or doesn't work. You can't run out of guesses, and there's no time limit.
You win when you've properly used all the letters on the board, meaning that you've identified the spangram and all of the theme words. Like other NYT games, upon completing the puzzle, you'll see a shareable card that shows how you performed that day: blue dots 🔵 indicate theme words you located, the yellow dot 🟡 indicates when you found the spangram, and a lightbulb 💡 indicates words that you received a hint for.
Read also:
After revealing the theme words and the spangram for today's Strands puzzle, you might be interested to know how entertainment is connected. The theme words in today's Strands are actually the Greek letters used as names for various sororities and fraternities, which have a long history and culture in the United States. While it may not seem directly related, this theme is an entertaining challenge for avid crossword and word search enthusiasts. Moreover, today's New York Times Strands puzzle features the spangram GREEKLETTERS, which also adds an element of entertainment to the puzzle.
