Searching for clues and solutions related to the Strands puzzle for Monday, February 17, 2025? This post will guide you with various hints and ultimately disclose the answer centered around the theme “Sun shade.”

For your convenience, bookmark this link to easily return to our daily Strands hints. There, you can also explore previous hints if you’re curious about puzzles you might have missed.

In this post, initial hints for today’s Strands answers will be provided. Scroll through carefully, taking note of only the clues you need!

Spangram Hint for Today’s Strands Puzzle

The crayon color that is the go-to choice when illustrating the sun.

Hints for the Theme Words in Today’s Strands Puzzle

Different variations of this cheerful shade can also be found within a crayon box.

WARNING: Spoilers Ahead for Today’s Strands Puzzle!

The subsequent section will unveil the answers for today’s Strands puzzle.

What is Today’s Spangram?

Today’s spangram is YELLOW.

What are the Theme Words for Today’s Strands?

The theme words for today include: SAFFRON, CANARY, DAFFODIL, MUSTARD, LEMON, and GOLDENROD.

Here’s the puzzle board after it has been solved:

Source: Strands/NYT

Approach to Today’s Strands Solution

Initially, it’s a bit perplexing. I consider items that provide shade from the sun—like umbrellas, hats, or sunglasses.

I spot the word SANDAL, but it doesn’t fit. Neither do WORLD or STORY.

I manage to nearly construct ASTRONOMY, ASTROLOGY, and ASTROLABE but falter. Let’s check for a hint. 💡

Aha! It highlights LEMON. 🔵 This leads me to realize, it’s all about shades of yellow!

And here’s the spangram, read from right to left: YELLOW. 🟡

DAFFODIL occupies the upper right corner. 🔵

SAFFRON can be found in the upper left. 🔵

CANARY completes the upper section. 🔵

MUSTARD spans across the middle section, leaning towards the left. 🔵

Finally, we have GOLDENROD. 🔵

Strands #351
"Sun shade"
💡🔵🟡🔵
🔵🔵🔵🔵

Guide to Playing Strands

The Strands game is available through the New York Times website and their NYT Games application.

Upon starting the game, a board filled with a variety of letters appears, accompanied by a hint suggesting the theme—this will be a phrase like “Better with age.” Your challenge is to identify the hidden words that resonate with the theme presented.

A Fusion of Crossword and Word Search

The central word to uncover is the “spangram,” which articulates the theme of the puzzle more distinctly. (For instance, the spangram for “Better with age” is FERMENTED, which indicates items that improve over time.) The spangram stretches entirely across the game board, either horizontally or vertically, hence the name. Finding it will usually simplify the rest of the puzzle.

Words can be arranged in any direction (vertically, horizontally, diagonally), and each letter is utilized only once. Only one correct solution exists. When you identify a word correctly (say, KOMBUCHA, MISO, or KIMCHI), it will be marked in blue.

If you encounter challenges with the puzzle, you may submit any non-theme words you identify (as long as they contain four letters or more) to gain credit toward a single hint. By submitting three non-theme words, the “Hint” button becomes active; clicking it highlights one of the theme word’s letters. You still have to arrange these highlighted letters correctly to spell out a theme word. If there’s already a hint provided and you utilize another hint before solving that word, the order of the letters for that word will be exposed.

Winning Strands

Differing from games like Connections and Wordle, failing at Strands is not a possibility. When guesses are submitted, you’ll either correctly identify a word, earn credit toward a hint, or experience a shake indicating an invalid or too short word. There’s no limit on the number of guesses, nor is there a time constraint.

You emerge victorious once you’ve successfully identified all the letters on the board, meaning you’ve found the spangram and all theme words. Similar to other NYT games, post-puzzle completion, a shareable card will be displayed indicating your performance that day: blue dots 🔵 represent theme words found, the yellow dot 🟡 shows when you located the spangram, and the lightbulb 💡 signifies the words for which you obtained hints.