NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #171 (Wednesday, August 21 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 — "One for the ages" — is a little tough to figure out, but once you uncover it, the rest should come easily.

Below, we've compiled some useful hints for Strands #171, 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 #171, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #171.

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

The official theme for NYT Strands #171 is... "One for the ages".

And here's an unofficial hint from me: "Many happy returns".

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

• SHADES
• DANCES
• CLEAR
• TRAY
• DATA
• SHALE
• BITE

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

Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's HAPPYBIRTHDAY.

Today's Strands answers

So, what are today's Strands answers for game #171?

Drumroll, please...

• PARTY
• CAKE
• CANDLES
• GIFTS
• CARDS
• CELEBRATE

..and the spangram was HAPPYBIRTHDAY.

Strands #171

“One for the ages”

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Hi Strands fans. Today's theme - "One for the ages" - is a bit of a head-scratcher at first, and I personally found myself initially looking for geographical eras like "Jurassic".

But then I found the word "HAPPY" at the top and continued tracing it down to read HAPPYBIRTHDAY, and realized this was nothing so academic. Instead, it's all about birthday traditions.

It all came together quickly after that. I found PARTY in the bottom left, followed by CAKE on the opposite side. CANDLES was immediately above that, spelt backwards, and GIFTS completed the right-hand side in the top corner.

Moving onto the left, CARDS was immediately obvious, just above PARTY. That only left the longest answer to find: CELEBRATE, which snaked around itself in the top 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 #170 right here .