NYT Strands hints and answers for Thursday, July 30 (game #879)

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Wednesday's puzzle insteadthen click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Wednesday, July 29 (game #878) .

Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #879) - hint #1 - today's theme

What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

•Today's NYT Strands theme is… Trade names

NYT Strands today (game #879) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• WART

• RAVE

• MAST

• STOP

• TROOPER

• PASTE

NYT Strands today (game #879) - hint #3 - spangram letters

How many letters are in today's spangram?

•Spangram has 8 letters

NYT Strands today (game #879) - hint #4 - spangram position

What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

• First side:left, 1st row

• Last side:right, 1st row

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #879) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #879, are…

• SMITH

• MASON

• JOINER

• TANNER

• COOPER

• WEAVER

• SPANGRAM: ARTISANS

• My rating:Hard

• My score:1 hint

As I was working around the board collecting "trade names" I could not help but wonder how many of today's trades would be considered the work of ARTISANS in the future — programmer, writer, barista?

Many in the search are jobs that are now quite niche, yet we only need think of how many people are named SMITH or COOPER to realize how commonplace they once were.

Not so commonplace, however, to prevent me from needing a hint, although in my case it was laziness that prompted me to take the shortcut, thus demonstrating my inevitable replacement by a far more capable AI version.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Wednesday, July 29, game #878)

• DOLL

• PUPPET

• DUMMY

• MANNEQUIN

• FIGURINE

• STATUE

• SPANGRAM: FABRICATED

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's not-so-new-any-more word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable that has been running for a year and which can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

I've got a full guide to h ow to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.