NYT ‘Strands’ Hints, Spangram And Answers For Friday, January 31

Looking for Thursday’s Strands hints, spangram and answers? You can find them here:

ForbesNYT ‘Strands’ Hints, Spangram And Answers For Thursday, January 30By Paul Tassi

Today’s puzzle is something applicable to me as a relatively new father, but it may be harder for you depending on your situation.

How To Play Strands

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.

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.

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?

The NYT hint is probably enough to get you started today, but if not, I will give you one of my own as well. The official hint is:

Baby talk

And my hint is:

Early speech

What Are Today’s Strands Answers?

First we will reveal the spangram as spoileres follow below, and then the rest of the answers after that.

FIRSTWORDS

And here is where you find that on the board:

And the answer list:

• YUCKY
• MAMA
• MINE
• BYEBYE
• BOTTLE
• DADA
• MORE
• KITTY

Eight words plus the spangram is about as much as you can even fit in a puzzle, which can happen when almost all of them are 4-6 letters. As for my son, he did say most of these, maybe not bottle, though he used sign language for some things like more. Yucky was more of a face than anything else. Now he’s chattering away. Time goes by so fast.

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