Today’s NYT Strands answers, clues, and hints on March 17 (#744)

Strands is one of the newer daily word puzzles from the New York Times and follows the success of other popular word games like Wordle and Connections. It’s often more of a brain teaser than those two, and generally takes longer, so looking for clues comes in handy if you’re hoping to solve today’s Strands without wasting too much time.

The goal is to find a selection of hidden words related to a broader theme within a 48-letter grid (6×8). Unlike a traditional wordsearch puzzle, you can string together adjacent letters in any direction, and the goal is to complete the entire board. In addition to the theme words, there’s also the “spangram”: a word that describes today’s theme and touches two opposite sides of the grid (it can also be multiple words). You’ll know it’s the spangram as it will highlight it in yellow once found.

What is today’s NYT Strands theme? (March 17, puzzle #744)

The theme for today’s Strands is “Happy St Patrick’s Day!” NYT rates the difficulty of today’s puzzle (#744) as “easy”.

Non-theme hint words for today

Strands has another interesting mechanic. If you make a word that isn’t part of the theme words, you work towards earning a hint. Three non-theme words will earn you a hint that reveals the letters of a theme word. Here are today’s hint words:

• ROPY
• TRAP
• TYPO
• POPPY
• GORE
• TEEN

How many letters are in today’s spangram? And is it one word?

There are 7 letters in the spangram today, and it is two words.

Which sides of the board does today’s spangram touch?

The spangram today touches the first column, fifth row, and the last column, fourth row – it is mostly horizontal. The spangram starts with G and ends with N.

What are all the answers in today’s Strands?

If you’ve taken advantage of all the hints and still haven’t solved the puzzle, you can find the full answers to today’s Strands below. There are eight regular theme words in total, followed by the spangram in bold to make a total of nine.

• FLAG
• PARTY
• GODDESS
• LIGHT
• BERET
• THUMB
• PEPPER
• ROOM
• GOGREEN

Is Strands more difficult than Wordle?

Strands and Wordle are similar in the sense that they’re both word games, but there’s much more to solve in Strands, so we’d say it leans towards being the more difficult of the two. If word searches are more your thing, then you might find Strands to be more enjoyable than Wordle, though that doesn’t guarantee it’s easier. You need to find words that cover the entire board, which means solving around seven or eight words in the correct pattern, including the spangram. Wordle is just one word every day.

The built-in hints system is one nice thing about Strands and something Wordle doesn’t offer. If you can’t immediately find any words related to the theme and don’t know where to start, you can string together any word and have a decent chance of building towards a hint.