New York Times Strands Hints and Answers for May 20, 2024

Strands has a whole new puzzle grid with seemingly random letters all jumbled up inside of it. In order to win this puzzle, you’ll need to find all five themed words and the Spangram hiding in it. But the rules of Strands get even more complex than that; you also have to use all the letters and can’t overlap any words or letters.

It’s so easy to get stuck playing this game, and you might not want to use the in-game hint system since it spoils entire words for you. If you are searching for other kinds of help, you can find it in the article below.

The NYT Games Strands Puzzle #78 for May 20, 2024

Today’s Strands clue is Fowl Fairy Tale. There are six things to find in this puzzle: one Spangram category and five themed words.

New York Times Games Strands Clues

In this browser-based puzzle game, the in-game hint system does spoil part of the puzzle for you. If you would rather just have some clues to will get you close to the answer without ruining any of the words, you can find three hints in the sections below.

General Hint 1

Hint 1
: What can Fowl mean in this context?

General Hint 2

Hint 2
: Fairy tales that feature birds of some kind.

General Hint 3

Hint 3
: This is about a fairy tale that involves a swan.

Spoilers for Two of the Words in Today’s Strands

Want even more help with this difficult puzzle game today? Below are two words from the puzzle along with their positions in the letter grid of today’s Strands.

Spoiler 1

Spoiler 2

The Answer to Today’s New York Times Games Strands

The complete spoiler for today’s New York Times GamesStrands can be found in the expandable section below. It contains all the words, the Spangram, and their positions inside the puzzle’s grid.

The category for today is
UglyDuckling
. The words are Journey, Beautiful, Misfit, Swan, and Reflection.

Today’s Strands Explained

Need an explanation for how the themed words, the Spangram category, and the clue all fit together? You can find that in the expandable section below; just press the Read More button to see it in full.

Fowl Fairy Tale
refers to how the story called the
Ugly Duckling
is a fairy tale about a bird, because fowl is another word for bird. Each of the themed words is something that is important to this fairy tale.

Want to play? Check out the New York Times Games Strands website available on almost any device with a browser.

Strands

Platform(s)

Web Browser

Released

March 4, 2024

Developer(s)

The New York Times Company

Publisher(s)

The New York Times Company

Genre(s)

Puzzle