Today’s NYT Strands hints and answers.
New York Times
Looking for Wednesday’s Strands hints, spangram and answers? You can find them here:
Hey, folks! Today’s NYT Strands hints, spangram and answers for Thursday, March 27 are coming right up.
How To Play Strands
The New York Times’ Strands puzzle is a play on the classic word search. It’s available on the NYT website and in the NYT Games app alongside the likes of Wordle and Connections (which we also cover in daily guides at Forbes Gaming).
There’s a new game of Strands to play every day. The game will present you with a six by eight grid of letters. The aim is to find a group of words that have something in common, and you’ll get a clue as to what that theme is. When you find a theme word, it will remain highlighted in blue.
You’ll also need to find a special word called a spangram. This tells you what the words have in common. The spangram links at least two sides of the board, but it may not start or end there. While the theme words will not be a proper name, the spangram can be a proper name. When you find the spangram, it will remain highlighted in yellow.
Every letter is used once in one of the theme words and spangram. You can connect letters vertically, horizontally and diagonally, and it’s possible to switch directions in the middle of a word. If you’re playing on a touchscreen, double tap the last letter to submit your guess.
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If you find three valid words of at least four letters that are not part of the theme, you’ll unlock the Hint button. Clicking this will highlight the letters that make up one of the theme words.
Be warned: You’ll need to be on your toes. Sometimes you’ll need to fill the missing word(s) in a phrase. On other days, the game may revolve around synonyms or homophones. The difficulty will vary from day to day, and the puzzle creators will try to surprise you sometimes.
What Is Today’s Strands Hint?
Scroll slowly! Just after the hint for today’s Strands puzzle, I’ll reveal what the answer words are.
The official theme hint for today’s Strand puzzle is…
Playing the field
Need some extra help? Here’s another hint…
Pennant contenders
There are seven theme words to find today, including the spangram.
What Are Today’s NYT Strands Hints?
Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Strands hints.
Here are the first two letters of every theme word in today’s puzzle. They’re ordered from left to right, then top to bottom by any letter of the word appearing for the first time:
What Are Today’s NYT Strands Answers?
Before I reveal the other the full word list, I’ll first tell you the spangram and show you where that is on the grid.
This is your final spoiler warning!
Today’s Strands spangram is…
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Here’s where you’ll find it on the grid…
New York Times Strands screenshot, showing the highlighted term NATIONAL LEAGUE
New York Times
Today’s Strands theme words are…
- BREWER
- PIRATE
- NATIONAL LEAGUE
- DODGER
- MARLIN
- BRAVE
- GIANT
Here’s what the completed grid looks like…
Completed NYT Strands grid for March 27, including the words BREWER, PIRATE, NATIONAL LEAGUE, … More
New York Times
I figured that this might be some kind of baseball theme, so I was worried I was going to struggle with it. A couple of hints gave me the letters for BRAVE and GIANT, which confirmed my fear. I know very little about baseball! Even the names of MLB teams!
More hints gave me BREWER and DODGER, though I did see PIRATE myself thanks to the symmetry of the answers. I then spotted the spangram, which left MARLIN for the win.
I thought the symmetrical layout of this one with the diamond-shaped spangram was cute, despite my minor frustration of not really knowing enough team names to do better at this. But after looking things up, I found out today is opening day for the 2025 season for many MLB teams, so the grid is certainly timely.
I used four hints and the spangram was the sixth theme word I found.
See you tomorrow for more Strands fun!
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