NYT Strands today — hints, answers and spangram for Wednesday, May 1 (game #59)

New month, same old (relatively new) NYT Strands. That means a 6×8 grid of letters, hidden within which are a number of answers grouped around a theme. It’s brought to you by the people behind Wordle and Connections, and it’s rather difficult. Read on for some hints.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #59) – hint #1 – today’s theme

NYT Strands today (game #59) – hint #2 – clue words

NYT Strands today (game #59) – hint #3 – spangram

NYT Strands today (game #59) – hint #4 – spangram position

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #59) – the answers

The answers to today’s Strands, game #59, are…

• THIMBLE
• IRON
• SHIP
• WHEELBARROW
• RACECAR
• PENGUIN
• SPANGRAM: MONOPOLY

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

I loved MONOPOLY as a kid, although my sisters probably didn’t love the zeal with which I would routinely bankrupt them. Anyway, this was a fun Strands puzzle, albeit not too taxing.

Four-letter words are the easiest to find in Strands, so it always helps when there are a couple of them among the answers. The two hidden within today’s puzzle – IRON and SHIP – were enough for me to confirm what the theme here was, when added to the hint of ‘A token of our appreciation’.

The only issue was that I have no idea what the tokens in MONOPOLY are these days. When did a PENGUIN get added? But finding the spangram was very easy once I knew what I was looking for, and that pointed the way to the likes of THIMBLE and RACECAR once the board had some structure.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday’s NYT Strands answers (Tuesday 30 April, game #58)

• MAYO
• TZATZIKI
• KETCHUP
• SRIRACHA
• AIOLI
• MUSTARD
• SPANGRAM: CONDIMENT