NYT Strands today — hints, answers and spangram for Saturday, October 26 (game #237)

Strands is the NYT’s latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it’s great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my Wordle today, NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #237) – hint #1 – today’s theme

NYT Strands today (game #237) – hint #2 – clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• RAIL
• BALL
• BELL
• CABLE
• SING
• SALT

NYT Strands today (game #237) – hint #3 – spangram

NYT Strands today (game #237) – hint #4 – spangram position

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #237) – the answers

The answers to today’s Strands, game #237, are…

• ARIA
• BALLAD
• SHANTY
• JINGLE
• LULLABY
• SPIRITUAL
• SPANGRAM: VOCALMUSIC

• My rating: Moderate
• My score: 2 hints

I was mildly concerned when I uncovered ARIA as the first answer today. It was sitting prominently in the top-left corner of the board, and given that the theme clue was ‘Sing-song’ it seemed likely to be a solution. And it was. However, all I know about ARIAs is that they are an opera thing – and I know about as much about opera as I do about brain surgery. Probably less, frankly.

Fortunately, this wasn’t a Strands puzzle all about opera, but rather one about VOCALMUSIC. Establishing that fact was not too tricky, because I spotted the MUSIC part of the spangram on account of the SIC part being right in the middle height-wise and on the edge of the board, which led me to the full phrase. I then got BALLAD and SHANTY easily enough because they were squashed in below the spangram. so far, so good.

Only then I stalled. I couldn’t think of any other types of VOCALMUSIC and needed to use hints for JINGLE and LULLABY. I added SPIRITUAL by default, but was rather disappointed I hadn’t done better here.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday’s NYT Strands answers (Friday, 25 October, game #236)

• CHIRP
• SQUEAK
• PURR
• GROWL
• BARK
• SQUAWK
• GRUNT
• MEOW
• SPANGRAM: PETSOUNDS

Marc is TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief, the latest in a long line of senior editorial roles he’s held in a career that started the week that Google launched (nice of them to mark the occasion). Prior to joining TR, he was UK Editor in Chief on Tom’s Guide, where he oversaw all gaming, streaming, audio, TV, entertainment, how-to and cameras coverage. He’s also a former editor of the tech website Stuff and spent five years at the music magazine NME, where his duties mainly involved spoiling other people’s fun. He’s based in London, and has tested and written about phones, tablets, wearables, streaming boxes, smart home devices, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, games, TVs, cameras and pretty much every other type of gadget you can think of. An avid photographer, Marc likes nothing better than taking pictures of very small things (bugs, his daughters) or very big things (distant galaxies). He also enjoys live music, gaming, cycling, and beating Wordle (he authors the daily Wordle today page).