NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #260 (Monday, November 18 2024)

Need some assistance with NYT Strands today? Today’s theme — “Coming up for air” — isn’t easy, even when you have your first answer on the board.

Below, we’ve compiled some useful hints for Strands #260, 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 #260, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #260.

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

The official theme for NYT Strands #260 is… “Coming up for air”.

And here’s an unofficial hint from me: “Underwater critters”.

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

• SLAM
• NEAT
• WAILS
• CORAL
• NATURAL
• AREA
• REAL

Still struggling? The spangram will give you a hint about the connection word. Today, it starts with ‘M’ and ends with ‘S’.

Scroll down to find out what it is…

It’s MARINEMAMMALS.

Today’s Strands answers

So, what are today’s Strands answers for game #260?

Drumroll, please…

• ORCA
• NARWHAL
• SEAL
• WALRUS
• DOLPHIN
• MANATEE

…and the spangram was MARINEMAMMALS.

Strands #260

“Coming up for air”

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Hi Strands fans. This was a toughie. Not only was the theme a little confusing to begin with, but it turns out that sea mammals aren’t exactly queuing up to trip off my tongue.

I actually had to use a clue to get started, which gave me ORCA. That’s good, as it’s probably not one I’d have easily got on my own, and it gave me a feel for the theme.

I then saw NARWHAL on the opposite side, and got SEAL above it (rather luckily, as I was actually trying to spell out “sealion”).

I then found WALRUS near the bottom-right corner, and that cleared enough space to figure out the spangram: MARINEMAMMALS from the bottom right to the top left.

Two words were left to find. Surprisingly, it was only now that I got DOLPHIN, and that left just the anagram of MEAENAT to decode. It was, of course, MANATEE.

Yesterday’s Strands answers

Reading this in a later time zone? You can find the full article on yesterday’s Strands answers for game #259 right here.