Strand’s NYT Hints, Spangram and Answer for Today, December 28, 2024

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If you’re looking for Strands Saturday 28 December 2024 hints and answers, read on – I’ll share some hints and tips and finally the solution to the “Just the Essentials” puzzle.

For an easy way to return to our Strands tips every day, bookmark this page. You can also find our previous hints there if you want to know what you missed in a previous puzzle.

Below I’ll give you some oblique hints for today’s Strands answer. And further down the page I reveal the framework and the answers. Scroll slowly and pick up just the hints you need!

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Hint for the span frame in today’s Strands puzzle

Two words that refer to the practice of using scents to soothe and relax.

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Hint for the theme words in today’s Strands puzzle

Examples of “essential” oils that can go in candles or a diffuser.

BEWARE: Spoilers ahead for today’s Strands puzzle!

We are about to give away the answers to today’s Strands puzzle.

What is the spanframe in today’s Strands?

Today’s spangram is AROMATHERAPY.

What are the key words in today’s Strands?

The theme words today are: EUCALYPTUS, PATCHOULI, LAVENDER, CEDAR.

This is what the board looks like when the puzzle is solved:

How I solved today’s Strands

OK, so we’re looking for basic items.

EUCALYPTUS is in the top row and it’s a hit. Oh, so it’s probably essential oils.

LAVENDER goes across the lower section into the lower left corner.

CEDARWOOD starts in the lower right corner and goes up the right edge.

PATCHOULI is gathered along the left edge.

It seems that the only thing left is the framework: AROMATHERAPY.

Strands #300
“Just the essentials”

How to play Strands

You can find the Strands game on the New York Times website and in the NYT Games app.

When you start playing, you’ll see a game board with a selection of letters, flanked by a clue that hints at the board’s theme – this will be a phrase like “Better with age.” Your task is to find the hidden words on the board that reflect the theme of the puzzle.

A crossword crossed with a word search

The most important word to find is “spangram”, a word that more explicitly states the theme of the puzzle. (For example, the spanframe for the “Better with Age” themed puzzle is FERMENTED, which describes products that, you guessed it, get better with age.) The spanframe will span the entire game board, either left to right or top to bottom (hence the name). When you find the span frame, it will be highlighted in yellow. Solving the spanframe usually makes the rest of the puzzle much easier to complete.

In Strands, words can travel in any direction (up, down, left, right, and diagonal), and you’ll only use each letter once. There is only one correct solution. When you correctly identify one of the puzzle words (for example, KOMBUCHA, MISO or KIMCHI), it will be highlighted in blue.

If you’re struggling to solve the puzzle, you can submit any non-theme word you see (as long as they’re four letters or more) to receive credit for a single hint. If you submit three words without a theme, the “Hint” button will be clickable; if you click on it, all the letters of one of the theme words will be highlighted for you. You still need to link these highlighted letters in the correct order to form one of the theme words. If there is already a hint on the board and you use another hint before solving that word, the letter order of that word will be revealed.

How to win Strands

Unlike Connections and Wordle, you can’t go wrong with Strands. When you submit guesses, you will either correctly identify an answer, receive credit toward a hint, or the text will jiggle back and forth, indicating that the word you submitted is too short or invalid. You cannot run out of guesses and there is no time limit.

You win when you have used all the letters on the board correctly, which means you have identified the spanframe and all the theme words. Like other NYT games, when you solve the puzzle you’ll see a shareable card indicating how you did that day: blue dots indicate theme words you found, the yellow dot indicates when you found the spanframe, and a light bulb indicates words for which you have been given a hint.