NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #201 (Friday, September 20 2024)

NYT Strands on a cellphone
(Image credit: Tom’s Guide/NY Times/Shutterstock)
Strands today: Quick menu

Need a bit of help with NYT Strands today? Today's theme — "A way with words" — is pretty tough, even if you get its meaning right away.

Below, we've compiled some useful hints for Strands #201, 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 #201, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #201.  

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

The official theme for NYT Strands #201 is... "A way with words".

And here's an unofficial hint from me: "Linguistic terminology."

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

  • DIRTY
  • TAXES
  • CITY
  • ASIAN
  • STEEDS
  • ZINC
  • VERY

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

Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's POETRY.

Today's Strands answers

So, what are today's Strands answers for game #201?

Drumroll, please...

  • METER
  • VERSE
  • RHYME
  • SYNTAX
  • STANZA
  • DICTION
  • SCANSION

Strands #201

(Image credit: Alan Martin)

..and the spangram was POETRY.

Strands #201

“A way with words”

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Hi Strands fans. Boy, that was a toughie, and it required me to dig deep into my long-dormant school knowledge of linguistic terms to get to the bottom of it.

Though I actually had no idea what it was about to begin with, and regrettably had to use a clue. This revealed METER (which I completely missed with my tendency to look for British spelling!) as I realized it was about linguistic terms for writing VERSE (which was my next find).

I spotted RHYME to the right of that, followed by the spangram of POETRY across the center of the board. This neatly cordoned off SYNTAX to complete the bottom half.

My eyes were immediately drawn to the stray 'Z' in the top half of the grid, and I was able to connect that with the word STANZA. That divided the top into two, leaving two anagrams to decode: DICTION on the right, and SCANSION on the left.

Yesterday's Strands answers

Reading this in a later time zone? You can find the full article on yesterday's Strands answers for game #200 right here.

Alan Martin

Freelance contributor Alan has been writing about tech for over a decade, covering phones, drones and everything in between. Previously Deputy Editor of tech site Alphr, his words are found all over the web and in the occasional magazine too. When not weighing up the pros and cons of the latest smartwatch, you'll probably find him tackling his ever-growing games backlog. Or, more likely, playing Spelunky for the millionth time.