NYT Strands today — hints, answers and spangram for Wednesday, July 17 (game #136)

NYT Strands homescreen on a mobile phone screen, on a light blue background
(Image credit: New York Times)

Wednesday rolls around again, marking the middle of the week. But it's just another day for the NYT's Strands game, which appears without fail seven times a week. The countdown is on to play it now, before it's replaced by tomorrow's…

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my Wordle today, NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games.

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

Your Strands expert
Marc McLaren
Your Strands expert
Marc McLaren

Marc is TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief and has been obsessed with Wordle and its ilk for more than two years. He's authored dozens of articles on the game for TechRadar, including a daily today's Wordle answer column and a detailed analysis of the most common letters in Wordle in every position. He's also played every Wordle ever and only lost once and yes, he takes it all too seriously.

NYT Strands today (game #136) - hint #1 - today's theme

What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

Today's NYT Strands theme is… Park place

NYT Strands today (game #136) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

  • BOMB
  • DARE
  • BARE
  • PLAY
  • RARE
  • SIDE

NYT Strands today (game #136) - hint #3 - spangram

What is a hint for today's spangram?

Place for fun

NYT Strands today (game #136) - hint #4 - spangram position

What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

First: top, 4th column

Last: bottom, 2nd column

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

NYT Strands today (game #136) - the answers

NYT Strands answers for game 136 on a blue background

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #136, are…

  • SLIDE
  • SWINGS
  • SEESAW
  • SANDBOX
  • CLIMBER
  • BENCHES
  • SPANGRAM: PLAYGROUND

  • My rating: Easy
  • My score: Perfect

I miss going on playgrounds. They should make adult playgrounds. Not serious, dangerous things involving great heights and needing to be in good physical shape, but fun playgrounds with roundabouts and slides. There's a market here, I'm sure.

Anyway, regardless of my person feelings on the merits of the PLAYGROUND, this was an easy Strands puzzle to solve. You only really needed to find one answer to know what the theme was, when combined with the clue of 'Park place', unless maybe that first answer was BENCHES, which is maybe a little out of place here. But all told, this is a simple one.

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


Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday 16 July, game #135)

  • CHICK
  • DUCKLING
  • LAMB
  • GOSLING
  • FOAL
  • CALF
  • PIGLET
  • SPANGRAM: BABYANIMAL

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's new word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now out of beta so is a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable and can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.

TOPICS
Marc McLaren
Global Editor in Chief

Marc is TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief, the latest in a long line of senior editorial roles he’s held in a career that started the week that Google launched (nice of them to mark the occasion). Prior to joining TR, he was UK Editor in Chief on Tom’s Guide, where he oversaw all gaming, streaming, audio, TV, entertainment, how-to and cameras coverage. He's also a former editor of the tech website Stuff and spent five years at the music magazine NME, where his duties mainly involved spoiling other people’s fun. He’s based in London, and has tested and written about phones, tablets, wearables, streaming boxes, smart home devices, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, games, TVs, cameras and pretty much every other type of gadget you can think of. An avid photographer, Marc likes nothing better than taking pictures of very small things (bugs, his daughters) or very big things (distant galaxies). He also enjoys live music, gaming, cycling, and beating Wordle (he authors the daily Wordle today page).