NYT Strands today — hints, answers and spangram for Saturday, May 18 (game #76)

May 17, 2024

The weekend is the perfect time to play the NYT’s Strands game, because you don’t have to worry about work and can therefore dedicate as much time as you want to solving it! Unless you do work today, of course, which is quite possible. If so, I’m sorry for making you feel worse about that. Please take my hints for today’s game by way of apology.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.

Your Strands expert

Marc McLaren

NYT Strands today (game #76) – hint #1 – today’s theme

What is the theme of today’s NYT Strands?

• Today’s NYT Strands theme is… Part of the equation

NYT Strands today (game #76) – hint #2 – clue words

What are some good clue words today?

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• REEDY

• LEVER

• TALE

• CLAM

• DIVE

• LAME

NYT Strands today (game #76) – hint #3 – spangram

What is a hint for today’s spangram?

• Summing it up

NYT Strands today (game #76) – hint #4 – spangram position

What are two sides of the board that today’s spangram touches?

• First: left, 1st row

• Last: right, 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 #76) – the answers

NYT Strands answers for game #76 on a blue background — (Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today’s Strands, game #76, are…

DIVIDE
MULTIPLY
CALCULATE
SUBTRACT
DERIVE
SPANGRAM: MATHEMATICS

My rating: Moderate
My score: Perfect

A surprisingly tough Strands puzzle today, considering there are limited options once you know what the theme is. Much of that difficulty comes from the fact that there are only five answers plus the spangram, and that almost all of them are quite long words that require some unpicking. Even those that aren’t (DERIVE and DIVIDE are the shortest, at six characters each) foxed me for quite some time, because I couldn’t work out how to actually construct the word out of the letters on offer. Too many Es and Is and Vs!

It is, however, a Strands puzzle that you can solve through a combination of brute force and knowing what the likely answers are – and there really are only so many once you realise it’s all about math.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday’s NYT Strands answers (Friday 17 May, game #75)

CHOPSTICK
MITTEN
PLIER
BOOKEND
TONG
WING
EARPLUG
SPANGRAM: PAIRED

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.

Source

The weekend is the perfect time to play the NYT’s Strands game, because you don’t have to worry about work and can therefore dedicate as much time as you want to solving it! Unless you do work today, of course, which is quite possible. If so, I’m sorry for making…