NYT Strands Today — Hints, Answers, and Spangram for Friday, July 19 (Game #138)
Here’s another potentially tricky Strands for you, in case you were expecting something different. It’s solvable, sure, but you might have to think creatively to do it without in-game hints. Or you can use my own hints to help you along.
Want more word-based fun? Check out my Wordle Today, NYT Connections Today, and Quordle Today pages for hints and answers for those games.
SPOILER ALERT: Below is information about today’s NYT Strands. So don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.
NYT Strands Today (Game #138) – Hint #1 – Today’s Theme
What is the theme of today’s NYT Strands?
• The theme of today’s NYT Strands is… And the Oscar goes to…
NYT Strands Today (Contest #138) – Hint #2 – Clue Words
Play one of these words to unlock the hint system in the game.
- NEST
- MILLING
- BRINE
- GOODS
- BEST
- SENSIBLE
NYT Strands Today (Contest #138) – Hint #3 – Spangram
What’s a hint for today’s spangram?
• Winners of the big screen
NYT Strands Today (Contest #138) – Hint #4 – Spangram Position
Which two sides of the board are affected by today’s spangram?
• First: left, 3rd row
• Last: right, 4th row
Okay, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.
NYT Strands Today (Contest #138) – The Answers
The answers to today’s Strands question, game #138, are…
- FIELD
- Swinging
- BERRY
- BRIDGES
- PHOENIX
- STONE
- HUNT
- SPANGRAM: BESTACTING
- My score: Moderate
- My score: Perfect
The NYT couldn’t have done more to highlight this, by giving us the theme clue of ‘And the Oscar goes to…’, which couldn’t really be misinterpreted. I still found it quite difficult to solve, though, as the answers were all names of Oscar winners that aren’t proper nouns, e.g. FIELD and STONE, which meant there were probably hundreds of possible solutions and the only way to solve it was to search for them. Word-searching is of course always a part of Strands – but most days you can at least rack your brain for words that might be an answer, and then search for them. Here, you had to find the words first.
Anyway, I eventually solved them all, although it took me a while to get the spangram BESTACTING, because I was looking for a real award name like BESTACTOR or BESTACTRESS. Once I had that, the game became a lot easier and I didn’t need any hints – just a lot of time.
How was your day? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s Answers to NYT Strands (Thursday, July 18, Contest #137)
- SHIFT
- ESCAPE
- ROOM
- YIELD
- CHECK
- ENTER
- TO DELETE
- SPANGRAM: KEYBOARD
What is NYT Strands?
Strands is the new word game from the NYT, after Wordle and Connections. It is now out of beta and is therefore a full member of the NYT stable of games and can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.
I have a complete guide to playing NYT Strands, complete with tips to solve the game. If you are having a hard time beating the game every day, you can definitely check it out.
