NYT Strands
NYT Strands

Thursday's Strands puzzle from The New York Times put the focus on family, challenging players to find a set of words tied to kinship hidden in a grid of jumbled letters.

Strands puzzle No. 963 went live at midnight local time Thursday with the theme clue "Any relation?" Players who want to work through the puzzle on their own can use the hints below before reaching the full answers further down.

What is today's Strands theme?

The theme clue for Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, is "Any relation?"

As with many Strands clues, the phrase is designed to be playful and a little vague. It hints at the idea of connections between people, specifically the ties that bind relatives together, rather than friendships or casual acquaintances.

Spoiler-free hints

Players who want a nudge without having the puzzle spoiled can try these hints, listed from the most general to the most specific:

  • Think about the people you are connected to by birth or heritage.
  • The words describe relatives, past and present.
  • One answer refers to those who came long before you, while another refers to those who come after.
  • Some of the words are old-fashioned or formal ways of describing relatives.
  • The spangram runs mostly diagonally across the board.

Hint for the spangram

The spangram is a special answer in every Strands puzzle that describes the overall theme and stretches from one side of the grid to the opposite side.

Thursday's spangram is a common two-word phrase describing the bonds between relatives. It begins with a word for a group of related people and ends with a word for connections.

Today's Strands answers

Players who want to keep solving should stop reading here.

The spangram for Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, is FAMILYTIES.

The theme words are:

  • ANCESTORS
  • BLOOD
  • BRETHREN
  • KINFOLK
  • OFFSPRING

Breaking down the answers

Each of Thursday's answers describes a type of family connection.

ANCESTORS refers to the people from whom a person is descended, such as grandparents, great-grandparents and earlier generations. It was likely one of the longer words for players to trace through the grid.

BLOOD is often used as shorthand for family, as in the saying that blood is thicker than water or the phrase "blood relatives." At just five letters, it may have been one of the easier answers to spot.

BRETHREN is an older plural form of "brother," still used in religious and formal contexts to describe members of a community or family. Its unusual spelling may have slowed some players down.

KINFOLK is a word for one's relatives, combining "kin," meaning family, with "folk," meaning people. It has a somewhat old-fashioned, rural feel and is less common in everyday speech.

OFFSPRING refers to a person's children or descendants. Together with ANCESTORS, it rounds out a theme that covers family connections both before and after one's own generation.

The spangram, FAMILYTIES, ties the set together by describing the bonds that connect all of these relatives.

Why today's puzzle may be tricky

Several of Thursday's answers are words that people rarely use in daily conversation. BRETHREN and KINFOLK in particular are older or more formal terms, and players may have had trouble recognizing them in the grid, even after spotting a few letters.

The diagonal path of the spangram may also have caused difficulty. Many players instinctively look for spangrams running straight across or down the grid, and a mostly diagonal route can be harder to see.

Players may also have been tempted by common family words that do not appear in the answer list, such as MOTHER, FATHER, SISTER or COUSIN. Strands puzzles often include letter combinations that look like they could form a relevant word but do not belong to the solution.

Yesterday's Strands answers

For players catching up on Wednesday's puzzle, Strands No. 962 had the theme "On a higher level."

The spangram was INTHEATTIC, and the theme words were BOXES, DECORATIONS, LUGGAGE, TRUNKS and YEARBOOKS, all items commonly stored in an attic.

How to play Strands

Strands is a daily word search game from The New York Times. Each puzzle presents a grid of 48 letters arranged in six columns and eight rows, along with a theme clue.

Players must find theme words hidden in the grid by connecting adjacent letters, which can link up, down, sideways or diagonally. Words can change direction as they wind through the board.

Every puzzle includes a spangram, a word or phrase that describes the theme and touches two opposite sides of the board. Each letter in the grid is used exactly once, so when a puzzle is solved, the theme words and spangram fill the entire board.

When a player finds a theme word, it is highlighted in blue. The spangram is highlighted in yellow.

How hints work

Strands offers a built-in hint system. Players earn a hint by finding three valid words of four or more letters that are not part of the theme.

Using a hint highlights the letters of one theme word in the grid, although players must still figure out the order of the letters to submit it.

Many experienced players use non-theme words strategically to earn hints when they are stuck, rather than guessing at random.

Tips for solving Strands

Players who struggle with Strands puzzles can try a few common strategies.

Start with the corners and edges. Letters in the corners have fewer neighboring letters, which can make it easier to work out which words they belong to.

Look for uncommon letters. Letters such as K, Y, F and O on Thursday's board can point to specific words and help narrow down the possibilities.

Find the spangram early. Because the spangram explains the theme and stretches across the board, identifying it can make the remaining words easier to find and divide the grid into more manageable sections.

Think broadly about the theme. Strands clues are often indirect or rely on wordplay, so it can help to brainstorm a range of possible related words before searching the grid.

About Strands

Strands joined The New York Times' lineup of daily puzzles in 2024 and has quickly become a fixture for many players, alongside Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee and the Mini Crossword.

A new puzzle is released each day at midnight local time. Players can share their results using a grid of colored circles that shows the order in which they found the theme words and spangram, and whether they used any hints, without revealing the answers.

The next Strands puzzle, No. 964, will be available at midnight Friday local time.