NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #312 (Thursday, January 9 2025)

17 hours ago 13

Strands today: Quick menu

Need some assistance with NYT Strands today? Today's theme — "Time for an upgrade" — is a little bit vague, and you may need a few hints to get started.

Below, we've compiled some useful hints for Strands #312, 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 #312, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #312.

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

The official theme for NYT Strands #312 is... Off the hook!"

And here's an unofficial hint from me: "Saltwater fish".

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

CALL
BREAK
MALE
CASK
BELLY
SCAM
BLUNT
LIFE

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

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Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's TUNAFAMILY.

Today's Strands answers

So, what are today's Strands answers for game #312?

Drumroll, please...

BIGEYE
YELLOWFIN
BLUEFIN
SKIPJACK
ALBACORE

...and the spangram was TUNAFAMILY.

Strands #312

“Off the hook!”

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Hi Strands fans. Today's puzzle is an annoying one if, like me, you don't eat seafood.

I had to use a clue to get started, and it took me a while to unscramble the letters I was given to spell BIGEYE. I had a vague recollection that this was a type of tuna, and having seen the word "family" earlier, I was able to attach it to "tuna" for the spangram of TUNAFAMILY.

So now I had to remember any kind of tuna. I knew YELLOWFIN and BLUEFIN which I helpfully found on either side of BIGEYE to complete the bottom half of the grid.

The top half was a bit more intimidating though, especially as there were only two words to find.

Fortunately I remembered SKIPJACK and that just left me with a single anagram to decode: ACOABRLE. After a lot of trial and error, I discovered it was ALBACORE - a word I'd never heard before.