NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #167 (Saturday, August 17 2024)

1. Today's hints

2. Today's answer

3. Yesterday's answer

Need a bit of help with NYT Strands today? Today's puzzle theme — "Carle classic" — is one you'll either get instantly, or find utterly baffling, depending on your childhood.

Below, we've compiled some useful hints for Strands #167, 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 #167, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #167.

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

The official theme for NYT Strands #167 is... "Carle classic".

And here's an unofficial hint from me: "A children's book from 1969."

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

• LORE
• GREEN
• MICE
• FLEA
• MILE
• SLAM
• WHELP

Still struggling? The spangram will give you a hint about the connection word. Today, it both starts with 'H' and ends with 'R'.

Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's HUNGRYCATERPILLAR.

Today's Strands answers

So, what are today's Strands answers for game #167?

Drumroll, please...

• APPLE
• SALAMI
• WATERMELON
• PICKLE
• LEAF

...and the spangram was HUNGRYCATERPILLAR.

Strands #167

“Carle classic”

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I've waited a long time for a puzzle with specialist knowledge that I get immediately, and today was it.

While the theme of "Carle classic" might be baffling to plenty of people, for me it could only mean one thing: The Very Hungry Caterpillar , the legendary kids' book, written by Eric Carle in 1969.

Sure enough, I found possibly the longest spangram so far: HUNGRYCATERPILLAR, which manages to fill up the entire bottom right-hand corner as it stretches across the board.

For those unfamiliar with the book, it outlines the various foodstuffs which the titular insect consumes on its journey to becoming a beautiful butterfly. That meant I found APPLE and SALAMI right away, with both placed immediately above the spangram.

I also remembered the slice of WATERMELON, which I found next.

I must admit the last two gave me a few problems, given I haven't read the book since I was a child, but through a bit of trial and error, I managed to get PICKLE on the left-hand side. And that just left LEAF, which the caterpillar eats as a healthy meal after gorging itself on less nutritious options to fix a stomach ache.

Well, that was a lovely nostalgic puzzle. Though I imagine if you never had the book read to you as a child, it might seem like a selection of random words...

Yesterday's Strands answers

Reading this in a later time zone? You can find the full article on yesterday's Strands answers for game #166 right here .