NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #285 (Friday, December 13 2024)

4 weeks ago 9

Strands today: Quick menu

Need some assistance with NYT Strands today? Today's theme — "One for the Swifties" — is obvious, but that's not much help if you're not one (I am not).

Below, we've compiled some useful hints for Strands #285, 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 #285, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #285.

Today's NYT Strands answer — Today's theme and hints

The official theme for NYT Strands #285 is... "One for the Swifties".

And here's an unofficial hint from me: "Taylor time".

If you're still in the dark, here are some useful words to give you those valuable clue tokens:

LOSS
ROLL
MODEL
REMOVE
RATE
FELT
SMITH
DELVE

Still struggling? The spangram will give you a hint about the connection word. Today, it starts with 'A' and ends with 'E'.

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Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's ALBUMTITLE.

Today's Strands answers

So, what are today's Strands answers for game #285?

Drumroll, please...

LOVER
EVERMORE
MIDNIGHTS
FEARLESS
FOLKLORE

...and the spangram was ALBUMTITLE.

Strands #285

“One for the Swifties”

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Hi Strands fans. My heart sunk when I saw today's theme: "One for the Swifties". I am not a Swiftie, and as such I knew I was going to struggle today, barely being able to list three Taylor Swift songs, let alone any of her albums.

Perhaps it's surprising that I managed to get an answer without using a clue, then. But the word LOVER in the bottom left corner certainly sounded like it could be a song title (I didn't know it was about albums yet) so I went for it, and was rewarded with my first correct answer.

But that lucky streak couldn't last and eventually, I conceded I needed to use a clue. It revealed EVERMORE which I wouldn't have ever got, and this helpfully underlined "album" - part of the spangram of ALBUMTITLE.

That cordoned off MIDNIGHTS in the bottom-right corner for another freebie, but I had to use a second clue to separate my two final answers, intertwined at the top of the grid. It revealed FEARLESS, which meant I just had to get FOLKLORE in the top left to complete the puzzle.