NYT Strands hints, answers for December 20

Fri, December 20, 2024 at 10:43 AM UTC

2 min read

A game being played on a smartphone. — Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Strands is a word-search game by the New York Times where players must find words made from linked letters in quirky shapes and patterns.
The game features a theme linking every solution, a "spangram" that sums up the theme, and an opaque hint to guide players through the puzzle.
Today's Strands theme revolves around breakfast foods, with the spangram "Cereal" being the answer for the day.

If you're reading this, you're looking for a little help playing Strands , the New York Times ' elevated word-search game.

Strands requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There's always a theme linking every solution, along with the "spangram," a special, word or phrase that sums up that day's theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically.

By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections .

If you're feeling stuck or just don't have 10 or more minutes to figure out today's puzzle, we've got all the NYT Strands hints for today's puzzle you need to progress at your preferred pace.

NYT Strands hint for today's theme: Morning morsel

These words are something you might eat for breakfast.

Today's NYT Strands theme plainly explained

Words are singular versions of common types of breakfast foods.

NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?

Today's NYT Strands spangram is horizontal.

NYT Strands spangram answer today

Today's spangram is Cereal.

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NYT Strands word list for December 20

Loop
Cheerio
Crunch
Puff
Pebble
Charm
Flake
Smack
Cereal

Looking for other daily online games? Mashable's Games page has more hints, a nd if you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now!

Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to today's Strands.