NYT Strands · #924 · Sunday, September 13, 2026
Strands Answers Today
Updated Sep 11, 2026 · new board every day
Today's clue, the spangram and all 6 theme words — then the solved board showing exactly where each one sits.
Today's board — no spoilers, just the letters
Today's Strands Hints & Answers
#924Six steps, deepest spoiler last. The first three give nothing away; the last one draws every word onto the board.
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1 Hint 1 · spoiler-safe Today's official clue
“Top secret”
This is the theme line the game itself shows you — no spoiler, just the same starting point every player gets.
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2 Hint 2 · spoiler-safe The shape of the spangram
Today's spangram is 10 letters, starts with U, and has 4 vowels. On the board it runs all the way from the left edge to the right.
Long spangrams are usually phrases run together rather than single words — worth remembering before you rule an answer out.
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3 Hint 3 · spoiler-safe First letter and length of every theme word
- M – – – 4
- A – – – – 5
- A – – – – 5
- P – – – – 5
- O – – – – – – – – 9
- C – – – – – – – – – 10
6 theme words plus the spangram. Every letter on the board belongs to exactly one of them.
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4 Reveal Today's spangram
UNDERCOVER
10 letters · runs all the way from the left edge to the right
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5 Reveal All 6 theme words
- AGENT
- ASSET
- COUNTERSPY
- MOLE
- OPERATIVE
- PLANT
Find these and the board is clear — together with the spangram they use every letter on it.
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6 Reveal · full spoiler The solved board — where every word sits
Each answer traced through the grid. The spangram is the dark path; every other colour is one theme word.
You could have lit up every one of these yourself for the price of 18 non-theme finds — see how below.
Today's difficulty
We rate #924 at 6/10 (medium) — weighing how many theme words there are, how long the spangram runs, and how many non-theme words the board hides to fund hints.
Hints you can earn
Today's grid hides 1797 non-theme words. Three of them buy one hint, so 18 finds would light up all 6 theme words — you cannot run out. That is the spoiler-free way off a stuck board.
Next Strands #925 unlocks in
Words That Earn Hints Today
Any of these count toward a hint and none of them is an answer, so reading this list spoils nothing — it is the one list here that is not part of the Strands answers today. Longest first, since long words are the easiest to spot on the board.
Show 120 of today's 1797 non-theme words
- COUNTERAGENT
- STEREOMETERS
- UNDERCOVERTS
- CONTRASTIVE
- COTONEASTER
- STEREOMETER
- TASEOMETERS
- UNDERCOVERT
- AREOMETERS
- CANCERATES
- CARTONAGES
- CENTROSOME
- CONTRASTED
- CONVOCATES
- COUNTERSPY
- DECASTERES
- OCTOGENARY
- PLANETARIA
- PLUTOCRATS
- PRECANCERS
- REASSORTED
- RECONVERTS
- STREETAGES
- STREETCARS
- TASEOMETER
- UNDERCASTS
- UNDERCOATS
- UNDERCOVER
- UNDERSTEER
- UNDERTONES
- ACROTERIA
- AREOMETER
- ASSORTIVE
- AUTOCARPS
- AUTOCRATS
- AUTOCROSS
- AUTOTUNES
- CANCERATE
- CARTONAGE
- CENTONATE
- CONTRASTS
- CONTRIVED
- CONVOCATE
- COVARIATE
- CROSSTIED
- CROSSTREE
- DECASTERE
- DEVIATORS
- ENTRECOTE
- EROSTRATE
- NONVOTERS
- OPERATIVE
- OSMETERIA
- OUTARGUES
- OUTVOTERS
- PERORATES
- PLANETARY
- PLANTAGES
- PLUTOCRAT
- POSTRIDER
- PRECANCER
- RECANTERS
- RECONVERT
- RECOUNTER
- RENOVATES
- RESORTERS
- RESTARTED
- RESTARTER
- RETRACTED
- SCAVAGERS
- SOREDIATE
- SOSTENUTO
- STAIRCASE
- STOLPORTS
- STRAVAGES
- STREETAGE
- STREETCAR
- TERATOGEN
- UNDERCAST
- UNDERCOAT
- UNDERTONE
- ACETONES
- ACROSOME
- ANTEATER
- ASSORTED
- ASSORTER
- ASTERNAL
- AUTOCARP
- AUTOCARS
- AUTOCRAT
- AUTOTUNE
- AUTOVACS
- CAROMELS
- CATERESS
- CENTNERS
- CENTONES
- CERASTES
- CONACRES
- CONTANGO
- CONTRAST
- CONTRATE
- CONTRATS
- CONTRITE
- CONTRIVE
- CONVERTS
- COUNTERS
- COVARIED
- CREDITOR
- CROSSTIE
- DERIVATE
- DETONATE
- DEVIATOR
- ECOTAGES
- ECOTONAL
- ECOTONES
- EMERITAE
- EMPERORS
- ENAUNTER
- ENCASTRE
- ENGRAVEN
Recent Strands Puzzles
The last 9 boards, with the clue each one was built on.
- #923 “Don't obsess”
- #922 “Harbor view”
- #921 “Victory lap”
- #920 “Over and out(side)”
- #919 “It's elementary!”
- #918 “It's a deal!”
- #917 “I've seen better”
- #916 “Informally known as”
- #915 “To the rescue”
What Is NYT Strands?
NYT Strands is a daily word-search puzzle on an eight-by-six letter board. Every letter belongs to exactly one answer: a set of theme words plus one spangram, which touches two opposite sides of the board and names the theme.
It launched in March 2024 and sits alongside Wordle and Connections in the NYT Games app, edited by Tracy Bennett. Unlike a normal word search there is no list of words to find and no grid of junk letters — the board is built so that the answers tile it completely. You drag through adjacent letters in any direction, including diagonally, and a correct answer locks in.
Why it plays differently from a word search
In a supermarket word search, most of the grid is filler. In Strands there is no filler at all, and that changes the whole approach: the letters you have not used yet are a real clue about what is left. That single rule is the reason people who treat Strands like a word search find it maddening, and people who treat it like a logic puzzle finish it.
There is no lose state
You cannot fail a Strands board and there is no guess limit. What you can do is get stuck, which is why so many people end up searching for the Strands answers today rather than the result of a game they lost. That changes what a page like this owes you: not a verdict on how you did, but the smallest nudge that gets you moving again. The hint mechanic below is that middle path, and it costs you nothing.
What Is a Spangram?
The spangram is the one answer that spans the board, touching two opposite edges — left to right, or top to bottom. It is also the answer that names the theme, which makes it the single most valuable word to find: get the spangram and the other answers usually fall out of it.
Today's is 10 letters and runs left to right across the board.
Spangrams are often phrases
This is where most solvers lose time. A spangram does not have to be one word — it is frequently a phrase run together, so a ten or twelve letter answer that looks like gibberish may be three short words in a row. If you are scanning for a single long noun you will look straight past it.
Start from the edges
Because the spangram has to reach two opposite sides, at least one of its letters sits in the first or last column, or the top or bottom row. That is a much smaller set of starting points than the whole board, and it is the fastest way into a puzzle you have not cracked.
How to Read Today's Solved Board
The solved board in step 6 traces every answer through the grid: the dark path is the spangram, and each other colour is one theme word running from its first letter to its last. It is the part of today's Strands answers that a plain word list cannot give you — knowing the answer is one thing, seeing how it snaked through the letters you were staring at is another.
The rule the picture makes obvious is the one worth internalising: no letter is shared between answers, and no letter is left over. So every word you lock in does double duty — it scores, and it removes its letters from play, cutting the remaining board into smaller islands. Late in a puzzle those islands are often only one shape, which means the last answer is frequently forced rather than found.
How to Earn Hints Without Spoiling the Answer
Strands has a hint system most players underuse. Find any three words of four letters or more that are not theme words, and the game hands you a hint: it lights up the letters of one theme word on the board without telling you what the word is. You still have to read it.
That is the key difference from looking up the answers. A hint tells you where, never what, so the puzzle stays yours to finish. And the supply is generous: today's board hides 1797 non-theme words. You can only ever spend 6 hints — one per theme word — so at three finds apiece the pool is never the constraint. Most people who look up the Strands answers today were three quick four-letter words away from not needing to.
How to farm them quickly
Sweep a small area of the board rather than hunting the whole grid. Four-letter words come fast out of any cluster of vowels, and they count exactly the same as long ones. Three quick finds in one corner buy a hint that may unlock the opposite corner. The list of today's non-theme words further up this page is there for exactly this — it is the one list on this page that is not a spoiler.
6 Tactics for Cracking the Theme Faster
These are the habits that shorten a solve, roughly in the order you should reach for them. None of them requires today's Strands answers — they are how the board gets read.
- Read the clue as a riddle. Strands clues are wordplay, not categories. “Top secret” is a nudge toward a connection, not a description of a word list.
- Hunt the spangram first. It reaches two opposite edges, so start on the rim. Finding it names the theme and everything else gets easier.
- Think long, not short. Forty-eight letters split between six or seven answers means the average answer is seven to nine letters. Short guesses are usually non-theme words — useful for hints, but not answers.
- Use the leftovers. After each find, look at what is unclaimed. Isolated letters have to belong to something, and their shape limits what that something can be.
- Buy a hint before you look anything up. Three non-theme words cost you nothing and keep the solve yours.
- Say it out loud. Run-together phrases read as nonsense on screen and land instantly when spoken. This is the trick that cracks most long spangrams.
Strands vs Wordle vs Connections
The three NYT word games ask for completely different kinds of thinking, which is why people who breeze through one can stall badly on another.
| Game | What you do | Can you lose? | Typical time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strands | Find every answer hidden in a letter board | No — no guess limit | 5–15 min |
| Wordle | Deduce one five-letter word | Yes — six guesses | 3–5 min |
| Connections | Sort 16 words into four groups | Yes — four mistakes | 5–10 min |
Strands is the only one you cannot fail, which changes what people want from a page like this: not a verdict, but a way out of being stuck. That is why today's Strands answers are stacked behind six steps that run from the official clue all the way to the solved board, in that order, instead of being dumped at the top of the page. If you want the other two, here are today's Wordle answer, today's Connections answer and today's Spelling Bee answers.