If you find yourself reading this, it means you are on the lookout for some help with Strands, the New York Times‘ elegant word-search challenge.

Strands offers players a fresh take on the classic word search. Players can create words from letters that are linked together in any direction — whether up, down, left, right, or diagonal, and they can shift direction to form distinct shapes and designs. Each letter in the grid contributes to a solution. A theme always ties together every response, as well as the “spangram,” which is a unique word or phrase that embodies the day’s theme and extends across the grid either horizontally or vertically.

By providing a cryptic hint and omitting a word list, Strands presents a demanding game that tends to take more time to complete compared to other games like Wordle and Connections.

If you’re feeling stuck or lack 10 minutes or more to tackle today’s puzzle, we have all the NYT Strands hints necessary to move forward at your own speed.

NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: It’s a bit buggy

The words pertain to bugs.

Today’s NYT Strands theme clearly stated

These terms refer to commonly known six-legged insects.

NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?

Today’s NYT Strands spangram is horizontal.

NYT Strands spangram answer for today

Today’s spangram is Insect