NYT ‘Strands’ Hints, Spangram And Answers For Friday, February 21

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

New puzzle today that is going to be hit or miss, but mostly hit if you had any sort of childhood at all.

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.

Be warned: You’ll need to be on your toes.

“Some themes are fill-in-the-blank phrases. They may also be steps in a process, items that all belong to the same category, synonyms or homophones,” The New York Times notes. “Just as she varies the difficulty of Wordle puzzles within a week, [Wordle and Strands editor Tracy]

Bennett plans to throw Strands solvers curveballs every once in a while.”

What Is Today’s Strands Hint?

The NYT hint is about all you need today as you’re either going to get it, or you’re not.

“To infinity, and beyond!”

And mine is:

“Somebody poisoned the water hole!”

That’s enough to get you started.

What Are Today’s Strands Answers?

The spangram spells out exactly what we’re doing here.

TOYSTORY

And here’s where that lies on the board:

And the answer list:

• SLINKY
• WOODY
• BUZZ
• WHEEZY
• BULLSEYE
• ALIEN
• TWITCH

Alright I’ll be honest, I did not actually know who Twitch was. He’s an insect action figure from one of the later movies and…I still don’t really remember him. Granted I’ve seen the original like 20 times and the later movies maybe once each. So this whole thing? Either you know Toy Story or this is impossible for you.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.