If youre looking for hints and answers for Strands for Thursday, August 14, 2025, read onIll share some clues and tips, and finally the solution to the puzzle with the theme Honest-to-goodness.

For an easy way to come back to our Strands hints every day, bookmark this page. You can also find our past hints there as well, in case you want to know what you missed in a previous puzzle. (If you play Wordle, Connections, or Quordle, check out our hints for those games, too.)

Below, Ill give you some oblique hints at todays Strands answers. And farther down the page, Ill reveal the spangram and the answers. Scroll slowly and take just the hints you need!

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Credit: Strands/NYT Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods Pro 2 Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds $169.00 (List Price $249.00) Dell 15 DC15255 (AMD Ryzen 7 7730U, 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM) $478.99 (List Price $678.99) Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge 256GB Unlocked AI Phone (Titanium JetBlack) $849.99 (List Price $1,099.99) Anker 25,000mAh Laptop Power Bank with Built-in Cables $109.99 (List Price $134.99) Shark NeverChange Air Purifier HEPA exceeding filtration for up to 5 years for home, pets, allergies, dust, and smoke up to 650 sq. ft. for bedroom, dorm, nursery, and more. White, HP153 $199.99 (List Price $249.99) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) $299.00 (List Price $349.00) Alienware Aurora ACT1250 (Intel Core Ultra 7 265F, RTX 5060 Ti, 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM) $1,499.99 (List Price $1,599.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team Hint for the spangram in todays Strands puzzleIt refers to certified truth; it can also describe ones credentials.

Hint for the theme words in todays Strands puzzleWords referring to a complete absence of deception. What you see is what you get.

BEWARE: Spoilers follow for todays Strands puzzle!Were about to give away the answers to todays Strands puzzle.

What is the spangram in todays Strands?Todays spangram is BONAFIDE.

What are the theme words in todays Strands?The theme words today are: REAL, AUTHENTIC, GENUINE, LEGITIMATE, KOSHER, TRUE.

Heres what the board looks like when the puzzle is solved:

Credit: Strands/NYT How I solved todays StrandsThe phrase honest-to-goodness usually indicates seriousness or authenticity, so that might be a good place to start.

Yeah, GENUINE is in the bottom left.

AUTHENTIC is above that.

REAL is above that.

BONAFIDE is along the right edge of the previous words, so its probably the spangram.

LEGITIMATE is in the upper right corner.

What do you think so far? TRUE is in the bottom right.

Lastly, KOSHER.

Strands #529 Honest-to-goodness How to play StrandsYou can find the Strands game on the New York Times website and in the NYT Games app.

When you start playing, youll see a game board with an assortment of letters, flanked by a clue that gives a hint at the boards themethis will be a phrase, like Better with age. Your job is to find the hidden words within the board that reflect the puzzles theme.

A crossword crossed with a word searchThe most important word to find is the spangram, a word that more explicitly states the puzzles theme. (For example, the spangram for the puzzle with the theme "Better with age" is FERMENTED, which describes products that are, you guessed it, better with age.) The spangram will span the entire game board, either from left to right or top to bottom (hence the name). When you find the spangram, it will be highlighted in yellow. Solving the spangram usually makes the rest of the puzzle much easier to complete.

In Strands, words can travel any direction (up, down, left, right, and diagonal), and you will only use each letter once. There is only one correct solution. When you correctly identify one of the puzzles words (for example, KOMBUCHA, MISO, or KIMCHI), it will be highlighted in blue.

If you are struggling to solve the puzzle, you can submit any non-theme words you see (as long as they are four letters or more) to receive credit toward a single hint. If you submit three non-theme words, the Hint button will be clickable; if you click it, all of the letters in one of the theme words will be highlighted for you. You will still have to link these highlighted letters in the right order to form one of the theme words. If there is already a hint on the board and you use another hint before solving for that word, that words letter order will be revealed.

How to win StrandsUnlike Connections and Wordle, you cannot fail Strands. When you submit guesses, you will either correctly identify an answer, receive credit toward a hint, or the text will shake back and forth, indicating that the word you submitted is too short or not valid. You can't run out of guesses, and there is no time limit.

You win when youve correctly used all the letters on the board, meaning that you have identified the spangram and all of the theme words. Like other NYT games, upon solving the puzzle, you will see a shareable card that indicates how you performed that day: blue dots indicate theme words you found, the yellow dot indicates when you found the spangram, and a lightbulb indicates words that you received a hint for.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Strands.