Today’s NYT Strands hints and answer — solutions to game #440, May 17
Strands today: Quick menu
Need a bit of help with NYT Strands today? No shame in that, and you’ve come to the right place. Below, we’ve compiled some useful hints for Strands #440, as well as the answers, should it come to that.
We’ll start off with some clues, before building up to the full answer for Strands #439, so read on if you need a little help.
Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #440.
Today’s NYT Strands answer — Today’s theme and hints
The official theme for NYT Strands #440 is… “She’s got game”.
And here’s an unofficial hint from me: “Sports teams”.
If you’re still in the dark, here are some useful words to give you those valuable clue tokens:
- WEIRD
- READ
- SOMBRE
- STOVES
- MASK
- RALLY
- WINED
Still struggling? The spangram will give you a hint about the connection word. Today, it starts with ‘B’ and ends with ‘L’.
Scroll down to find out what it is…
It’s BASKETBALL.
Today’s Strands answers
So, what are today’s Strands answers for game #440?
Drumroll, please…
- LYNX
- DREAM
- WINGS
- FEVER
- STORM
- LIBERTY
- MERCURY
…and the spangram was BASKETBALL.
Strands #440
“She’s got game”
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Hi Strands fans. An impossible one for those of us outside the United States. Strands #440 – “She’s got game” – is all about teams from the WNBA.
I had to use two clues and even they weren’t very helpful, revealing LYNX in the bottom-right corner, and DREAM just across from it.
I was able to add WINGS as a word to its left, but was still in the dark about the connecting theme, until I noticed the letters “BAS” between two of my confirmed words, and continued it to spell the spangram of BASKETBALL.
Now I knew it was about nicknames of WNBA teams, but as someone who doesn’t know the first thing about basketball, this was going to be a tedious game of guesswork.
In the end, I had to grind out the remaining answers by looking for random words. I found STORM in the top left, followed by FEVER below it.
The right side was harder, but I eventually found MERCURY in the top corner. That left LIBERTY below it to complete the puzzle.
Yesterday’s Strands answers
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Strands answers for game #439.
- DIPLOMA
- GOWN
- PHOTO
- SPEECH
- TASSEL
- PROCESSION
…and the spangram was GRADUATION.
Strands #439
“To a degree”
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Hi Stands fans. Today’s theme – “To a degree” – is clearly about education, but I wasn’t exactly sure how right away.
I found DIPLOMA pretty quickly in the top-left corner, but then spent my time looking for other education awards like “doctorate”.
Eventually, I found GOWN in the bottom-right corner and realized this was about GRADUATION – the spangram written from the bottom-left corner to the top right.
In the U.K, where I graduated longer ago than I like to think about, we don’t go in for big graduation day ceremonies, so I was at a bit of a loss. Thankfully, the spangram had cordoned off a couple of easy answers: PHOTO on the left-hand side and SPEECH at the top of the board.
But after those two were found, I still needed to use a clue to seperate my final two answers, which were fused together in the bottom-right segment. The clue revealed TASSEL, and that just left me to decode the remaining letters into PROCESSION to complete the puzzle.
