NYT ‘Strands’ Hints And Answers For Monday, December 9

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

ForbesNYT ‘Strands’ Hints And Answers For Sunday, December 8By Kris Holt

Hey there! I hope you had a great weekend and that you’re ready for the week ahead.

Today’s NYT Strands hints, spangram and answers for Monday, December 9 are coming right up.

How To Play Strands

The New York Times’ Strands puzzle is a play on the classic word search. It’s available on the NYT website and in the NYT Games app alongside the likes of Wordle and Connections (which we also cover in daily guides on Forbes Games).

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 at least two sides of the board, but it may not start or end there. 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?

Scroll slowly! Just after the hint for today’s Strands puzzle, I’ll reveal what the answer words are.

The official theme hint for today’s Strand puzzle is…

Quiet at first

Need some extra help? Here’s another hint…

No noise at the beginning

There are seven theme words to find today, including the spangram.

What Are Today’s NYT Strands Hints?

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Strands hints.

Here are the first two letters of every theme word in today’s puzzle. They’re ordered from left to right, then top to bottom by any letter of the word appearing for the first time:

What Are Today’s NYT Strands Answers?

Before I reveal the other the full word list, I’ll first tell you the spangram and show you where that is on the grid.

This is your final spoiler warning!

Today’s Strands spangram is…

SILENT LETTER

Here’s where you’ll find it on the grid…

Today’s Strands theme words are…

• MNEMONIC
• KNUCKLE
• SILENT LETTER
• HONESTY
• GNOME
• WRAP
• PSALM

Here’s what the completed grid looks like…

I thought STEW toward the bottom right might be a theme word but alas. Then I got WRAP in the same corner and figured out what was going on — the first letter is silent. GNOME in the bottom left confirmed that. “Silent” seemed like the start of the spangram but “silent one” wasn’t it and I couldn’t see another option at that point — the solution was right there! After PSALM, I used a whole lot of guesses, because I wasn’t seeing anything.

I used three hints and the spangram was the final theme word I found.

That’s all there is to it for today’s Strands clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog for hints and the solution for Tuesday’s game if you need them.

If you’re so inclined, please do follow my blog for more coverage of Strands and other word games as well as video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Also, follow me on Bluesky! It’s fun there.