Today's NYT Strands Hints (and Answer) for Wednesday, July 31, 2024

If you’re looking for hints and answers for Strands for Wednesday, July 31, 2024, read on—I’ll share some clues and tips, and finally the solution to the puzzle with the theme “Staying power.”

For an easy way to come back to our Strands hints every day, bookmark this page. You can also find our past hints there as well, in case you want to know what you missed in a previous puzzle.

Below, I’ll give you some oblique hints at today’s Strands answers. And farther down the page, I’ll reveal the spangram and the answers. Scroll slowly and take just the hints you need!

Today's NYT Strands Hints (and Answer) for Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Credit: Strands/NYT

Hint for the spangram in today’s Strands puzzle

A two-word spangram that describes things that might “stay” on you if you touch them. (It will be easier to find after you get one or two puzzle words.)

Hint for the theme words in today’s Strands puzzle

Stuff that might hold two things together, like a picture to a wall. There are also some words for things that may stay around—in hair or teeth, for example—that you might struggle to get rid of.

BEWARE: Spoilers follow for today’s Strands puzzle!

We’re about to give away the answers to today’s Strands puzzle.

What is the spangram in today’s Strands?

Today’s spangram is STICKYSTUFF.

What are the theme words in today’s Strands?

The theme words today are: CARAMEL, TAPE, ADHESIVE, BUBBLEGUM, EPOXY, GLUE.

Here’s what the board looks like when the puzzle is solved:

Credit: Strands/NYT

How I solved today’s Strands

Today’s puzzle theme is a little vaguer than usual—it could be celebrities with “staying power” (like Cher) or it could be words related to power and electricity, perhaps. I’ll poke around and see what I find.

I submit a couple random non-theme words, like RACE and LIME, but then I see GLUE in the bottom right corner and it’s a hit. So we’re looking for words for adhesives, things that literally have “staying power.” 🔵

There’s TAPE in the upper right corner. 🔵

There’s the spangram, STICKYSTUFF, from left to right. 🟡

BUBBLEGUM is below that. 🔵

EPOXY closes out the bottom half. 🔵

ADHESIVE lines the right side. 🔵

Lastly, CARAMEL. 🔵

How to play Strands

You can find the Strands game on the New York Times website and in the NYT Games app.

When you start playing, you’ll see a game board with an assortment of letters, flanked by a clue that gives a hint at the board’s theme—this will be a phrase, like “Better with age.” Your job is to find the hidden words within the board that reflect the puzzle’s theme.

A crossword crossed with a word search

The most important word to find is the “spangram,” a word that more explicitly states the puzzle’s theme. (For example, the spangram for the puzzle with the theme "Better with age" is FERMENTED, which describes products that are, you guessed it, get better with age.) The spangram will span the entire game board, either from left to right or top to bottom (hence the name). When you find the spangram, it will be highlighted in yellow. Solving the spangram usually makes the rest of the puzzle much easier to complete.

In Strands, words can travel any direction (up, down, left, right, and diagonal), and you will only 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 are struggling to solve the puzzle, you can submit any non-theme words you see (as long as they are four letters or more) to receive credit toward 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 will still have to link these highlighted letters in the right order to form one of the theme words. If there is already a hint on the board and you use another hint before solving for that word, that word’s letter order will be revealed.

How to win Strands

Unlike Connections and Wordle, you cannot fail Strands. When you submit guesses, you will either correctly identify an answer, receive credit toward a hint, or the text will shake back and forth, indicating that the word you submitted is too short or not valid. You can't run out of guesses, and there is no time limit.

You win when you’ve correctly used all the letters on the board, meaning that you have identified the spangram and all of the theme words. Like other NYT games, upon solving the puzzle, you will see a shareable card that indicates how you performed that day: blue dots 🔵 indicate theme words you found, the yellow dot 🟡 indicates when you found the spangram, and a lightbulb 💡 indicates words that you received a hint for.

If you're interested in finding additional entertainment, you might want to explore past 'Strands' puzzles, as they often contain similar themes and can be found on the same page as today's hint. Additionally, the two-word spangram from today's 'Strands' puzzle could be relevant when you're dealing with items that tend to stick or remain attached to surfaces, such as in craft activities or DIY projects.