NYT ‘Strands’ Hints, Spangram And Answers For Tuesday, February 18

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

ForbesNYT ‘Strands’ Hints, Spangram And Answers For Monday, February 17By Paul Tassi

This is a painful Strands puzzle today, but not in the way you think. It’s actually pretty easy and a speed-run kind of day, but you’ll see what I mean.

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 will get you started and then I will make up one of my own to push further

Ouch!

And mine is:

Prickly Problem

That’s enough to get you started.

What Are Today’s Strands Answers?

Answers are below including the spangram and the full list after that. The spangram is:

STINGER

And here’s where that lies on the board:

And the answers:

• JELLYFISH
• SCORPION
• HORNET
• BUMBLEBEE
• PLATYPUS

At first I thought this was going to be all different types of bees, given that I found HORNET and BUMBLEBEE first, but after not finding wasp or yellowjacket or anything else like that, I started realizing it was all things that can sting you. And way, platypus can actually sting you? With what? I had no idea that was a thing.

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