NYT Strands today: hints, spangram and answers for Friday, October 4

By Sam Hill and Jesse Lennox Updated October 4, 2024 5:30AM

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Contents

How to play Strands
Hint for today’s Strands puzzle
Today’s Strand answers

Like Wordle, Connections, and the Mini Crossword, Strands can be a bit difficult to solve some days. There’s no shame in needing a little help from time to time. If you’re stuck and need to know the answers to today’s Strands puzzle, check out the solved puzzle below.

How to play Strands

You start every Strands puzzle with the goal of finding the “theme words” hidden in the grid of letters. Manipulate letters by dragging or tapping to craft words; double-tap the final letter to confirm. If you find the correct word, the letters will be highlighted blue and will no longer be selectable.

If you find a word that isn’t a theme word, it still helps! For every three non-theme words you find that are at least four letters long, you’ll get a hint — the letters of one of the theme words will be revealed and you’ll just have to unscramble it.

Every single letter on the grid is used to spell out the theme words and there is no overlap. Every letter will be used once, and only once.

Each puzzle contains one “spangram,” a special theme word (or words) that describe the puzzle’s theme and touches two opposite sides of the board. When you find the spangram, it will be highlighted yellow.

The goal should be to complete the puzzle quickly without using too many hints.

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s theme is “Driver’s catch-all”

Here’s a hint that might help you: things you keep in a specific compartment of your car

Today’s Strand answers

NYT

Today’s spanagram

We’ll start by giving you the spangram, which might help you figure out the theme and solve the rest of the puzzle on your own:

GLOVEBOX

Today’s Strands answers

ATLAS
FLARE
TITLE
MANUAL
QUARTER
REGISTRATION

Gaming Guides Editor

Sam Hill is a journalist and the gaming guides editor at Digital Trends. He's also written tech guides for Input and has…

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