NYT ‘Strands’ Hints, Spangram And Answers For Thursday, January 30

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

ForbesNYT ‘Strands’ Hints, Spangram And Answers For Wednesday, January 29By Paul Tassi

A very interesting puzzle today, and not the first time they’ve done something like this. I do hope you possess a certain amount of literary knowledge, as you’ll need it to go far here.

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 long today but I will do a shorter one after that. That hint is:

Stopping by woods on a snowy evening

And my hint is:

Poetry in motion

What Are Today’s Strands Answers?

The spangram will be first but I am going to mix things up after that is posted:

FROSTPOEM

And here is where you find that on the board:

Before I do the full answer list, I’m going to do something unique and post the full text of the poem to see if you can pull the answers out from that alone:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

And the answer list:

• FROZEN
• DARK
• DEEP
• BELLS
• SHAKE
• SLEEP
• LOVELY
• LAKE

Did you get it with the poem clue? I thought that might be a little more fun than just a pure answer list. Let me know if you liked that or not and I’ll keep it in mind for the future.

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