If you're reading this,Fulwa (2025) Hindi Short Film you're looking for a little help playing Strands, the New York Times' elevated word-search game.

Strands requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There's always a theme linking every solution, along with the "spangram," a special, word or phrase that sums up that day's theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically.

By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections.

If you're feeling stuck or just don't have 10 or more minutes to figure out today's puzzle, we've got all the NYT Strands hints for today's puzzle you need to progress at your preferred pace.

NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: Fire represents your life

These words are related to a competition.

Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explained

The words are connected to a popular game show on an island.

NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?

Today's NYT Strands spangram is horizontal.

NYT Strands spangram answer today

Today's spangram is Survivor.

NYT Strands word list for February 26

• Immunity

• Alliance

• Merge

• Jury

• Challenge

• Reward

• Survivor

Looking for other daily online games? Mashable's Games pagehas more hints, and if you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now!

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