NYT Strands Answers & Hints – August 22, 2025

Today’s Theme: “Whodunit?”

Theme Description: The puzzle revolves around classic characters typically found in detective stories and murder mystery novels. Think of the usual suspects and roles you’d encounter in a “whodunit” mystery, including characters that would feel right at home in the classic board game Clue.

Hints for Today’s Theme Words

Hint #1: Someone who inherits the property or rank of another on the latter’s death
Hint #2: A member of law enforcement who’s tasked to investigate and solve crimes

Spangram Information

Spangram Position: The spangram runs mostly vertical and starts with the letters “IT“
Spangram Hint: A movie genre that focuses on solving a crime, where the identity of the criminal isn’t revealed until the end
Spangram Answer: ItsAMystery

All Theme Words for August 22, 2025

The six theme words for today’s puzzle are:

• LOVER
• RIVAL
• HEIR
• SPOUSE
• STRANGER
• DETECTIVE

About NYT Strands

NYT Strands is a word game where players connect letters in a six-by-eight grid to form words that share a common theme. Each puzzle includes multiple theme words and one special “Spangram” that spans the length of the grid vertically, horizontally, or diagonally.

Yesterday’s Strands Answer (August 21, 2025)

For those who missed yesterday’s puzzle, the theme was “Marvel-ous and then some” with a superhero focus:

Spangram: SUPERHEROES
Theme Words: WOLVERINE, STORM, HULK, DAREDEVIL, ROGUE, THING

Tips for Success

Always start at the corners: Theme words rarely extend diagonally from end to end, so corner words can provide early advantages
Don’t hesitate to use hints: Finding three non-theme words unlocks helpful hints for theme words
Aim for the Spangram: Since it spans the board, identifying even half of it can reveal the pattern for remaining theme words
Think both literally and figuratively: Themes may not always be literal – sometimes clever wordplay or synonyms fit better than obvious choices

Today’s puzzle proved relatively straightforward for many solvers, with early discovery of words like LOVER and RIVAL providing strong clues about the mystery/detective theme. The spangram ItsAMystery perfectly encapsulated the whodunit genre, making the remaining character archetypes easier to identify.