Strands, Daily Word Puzzle
Find the hidden themed words. Uncover the spangram. A new challenge every day.
Daily puzzle · Saturday, 11 July 2026
How to play Strands
- Drag through adjacent letters. You can move horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Lift to submit the word.
- All words share a theme. The theme is hinted at the top. Think broadly about what connects the words.
- Find the golden theme word. One special word (shown in gold) is the central concept. Finding it reveals the full theme.
- Use a hint when stuck. Each hint briefly highlights the starting cell of an unfound word. Three hints per puzzle.
More puzzle games
Five free games, one calm hub. No account, no app.
Why play Strands?
Vocabulary breadth
Each themed word list surfaces vocabulary you might not encounter in everyday reading, a painless way to expand your word bank.
Visual pattern search
Scanning a grid for hidden paths exercises spatial reasoning and the same visual cortex networks used in reading and navigation.
Daily habit
A single themed puzzle takes 3–8 minutes, short enough for a morning coffee ritual, satisfying enough to return for tomorrow's theme.
Frequently asked questions
Strands is a daily word-finding puzzle played on a rectangular grid of letters. Every puzzle has a secret theme, and all the theme-related words are hidden within the grid as connected letter sequences. One special word, the spangram, spans the full width or height of the board and hints at the theme.
Swipe or click connected letters in any direction (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) to form words. When you find a theme word, it highlights and locks in. Use hints (earned by finding non-theme words) if you get stuck. Find all theme words plus the spangram to complete the puzzle.
The spangram is a special word that physically spans the entire grid from one side to the other (top to bottom or left to right). It is always one of the answers and, when found, reveals or confirms the puzzle's theme. It is usually the most challenging word to locate.
Each Strands puzzle typically contains 6–8 theme words plus the spangram. The non-theme words you find while searching earn hint tokens, they count toward your total word count but are not highlighted as theme words.
Wordle tasks you with guessing a single 5-letter word through elimination across 6 attempts. Strands asks you to find multiple words connected by a theme in a grid. Strands rewards spatial awareness and vocabulary breadth; Wordle tests deductive word-guessing logic.
Yes. When you find a valid word that is not a theme word, it adds a hint token. Use hint tokens to reveal one letter of an unfound theme word. Building up several hint tokens before spending them is a strategic approach for hard puzzles.
A new puzzle publishes daily. Each puzzle is hand-crafted with a specific theme, ensuring variety in topics from pop culture to science to wordplay. Completing the daily puzzle counts toward your streak.
About Strands
This is a free daily word-hunt puzzle built around a hidden theme. You trace words across a grid of letters, and every word in the set connects back to that one concept. Finding the golden spangram, the word that spans edge to edge, usually unlocks the rest.
- New theme every day, no repeats within a rotation
- Hidden golden spangram in every grid
- Hint system available if you get stuck
- Free, no account required