Skip to main content

NYT Strands today: hints, spangram and answers for Friday, December 27

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.

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.

Recommended Videos

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 “Back in style”

Here’s a hint that might help you: fashion of a past decade.

Today’s Strand answers

NYT Strands logo.
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:

  • EIGHTIES

Today’s Strands answers

  • WINDBREAKER
  • SPANDEX
  • JUMPSUIT
  • MULLET
  • NEON
  • PERM
Sam Hill
As Digital Trends' Gaming evergreen lead, Sam Hill is here to help you find your new favorite game and dive right in. The…
The Alienware m16 R2 gaming laptop with RTX 4070 is $500 off
The Alienware m16 R2 on a table in front of a window.

The gaming laptop deals of the holiday season aren't over yet, as there are still some excellent offers, such as Dell's discount for the Alienware m16 R2 with the Nvidia RTX 4070. From its original price of $2,600, the machine is down to $2,100. It's still pretty expensive, but it's actually a steal at that price, and the $500 in savings is huge. You're going to have to be quick in completing your purchase though, as there's no information on how much time is remaining before this bargain expires.

Why you should buy the Alienware m16 R2 gaming laptop
We highlighted the Alienware m16 R2's great gaming performance in our review of the gaming laptop, and this configuration that's on sale comes with the mighty Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card. Combined with the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor and 64GB of RAM, which doubles the recommended specification from our guide on how much RAM do you need, the Alienware m16 R2 won't have trouble running the best PC games at their highest settings. It's going to be ready for the upcoming PC games of the next few years as well -- it will be a while before you need to start thinking about making any upgrades.

Read more
I’m a Steam Deck apologist. Here’s why I’ve been using the ROG Ally instead
Elden Ring running on the Asus ROG Ally X.

Since its launch, I'm a bit of a Steam Deck apologist. It doesn't need the advocacy, as the Steam Deck is easily the best handheld gaming PC you can buy, but even in the face of competition from the ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and MSI Claw, I still use my Steam Deck for gaming on the go. A couple of apps have been slowly changing that story, however.

I like playing on my Steam Deck OLED due to the convenience. SteamOS isn't perfect, no, but it allows me to pick up and play my games quickly, which I value more than the higher performance available on Windows handhelds. A couple of key tweaks to the Windows experience can unlock that pick-up-and-play experience, and ever since configuring the ROG Ally X properly, I've been gravitating toward it more and more for my handheld gaming.
A proper sleep

Read more
The Nintendo Switch 2 rumor mill was a comedy of errors in 2024
Nintendo Switch OLED and Joy-Con.

For a video game console that didn’t even come out in 2024, the Nintendo Switch’s successor left quite an impact.

Colloquially known as the Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo’s follow-up to its hit console-handheld hybrid had rampant speculation surrounding it the entire year. Even once Nintendo eventually confirmed it would talk about Switch 2 on its own terms, the rumors did not slow down. While it now seems highly unlikely that Nintendo will discuss Switch 2 again before the year is over, 2024 will, in my mind, forever be tied with ludicrous Switch 2 speculation.

Read more