Gaming Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Spangram, Answers: Saturday, July 4 (Ooh!) By Paul Tassi ,
Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet. Follow Author Jul 03, 2026, 10:00pm EDT --:-- / --:-- This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more . This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more . Strands NYT Looking for Friday’s Strands hints, spangram and answers? You can find them here:
Time for a colorful Strands today, in this case quite literally as the US celebrates its 250th Fourth of July.
The New York Times’ Strands puzzle is a play on the classic word search. It’s in beta for now, which means it’ll only stick around if enough people play it every day.
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 two opposite sides of the board. 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.
Be warned: You’ll need to be on your toes.
“Some themes are fill-in-the-blank phrases. They may also be steps in a process, items that all belong to the same category, synonyms or homophones,” The New York Times notes. “Just as she varies the difficulty of Wordle puzzles within a week, [Wordle and Strands editor Tracy] Bennett plans to throw Strands solvers curveballs every once in a while.”
Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase
Time to do the NYT hint and then my own hint after that:
Here are the first two letters of all the words if you don’t want the entire thing just yet.
Now we begin the answer portion of the program which is the spangram and the full list of the other answers, the spangram is:
Strands NYT Well I was wondering which NYT puzzles would go Fourth of July themed. I’ve only done two, but Connections did not, and Strands, apparently, has. Not Red White and Blue for this colorful fireworks puzzle here, but a host of other colors instead. Well, there’s red, I suppose. You never see the board lit up this much, that’s for sure.
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