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Tips, answers and help from today’s NYT Strands for October 20 #596

In search of most recent Response from the strands? Click here for our daily Strands cheats, as well as our daily answers and tips for the New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.


Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a tricky one. Some answers are a little difficult to decipher, so if you need clues and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules of Strands in this story.

If you are looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle tips page.

Learn more: NYT Connections Celebrates Its First Anniversary: ​​These Are the 5 Hardest Puzzles Yet

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: “It’s in the mail.”

If that doesn’t help, here’s a hint: do people still use this payment method?

Clue words to unlock clues in the game

Your goal is to find hidden words that match the theme of the puzzle. If you’re stuck, find all the words you can. Every time you find three words of four or more letters, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. Here are the words I used to get these clues, but any words of four letters or more that you find will work:

  • CHECK, CHECKS, SNARE, SNARES, MITE, SNOG, MOUNT, MESS, DARE, NUMB

Answers to today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that are related to the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a themed word that extends from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have them all (initially I thought there were always eight, but I learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the non-spangram responses:

  • MEMO, AMOUNT, NUMBER, ROUTING, SIGNATURE, ADDRESS

Today’s Strands spangram

NYT Strands puzzle completed by October 20, 2025

The NYT Strands puzzle completed by October 20, 2025.

NYT/Screenshot by CNET

Today’s Strands spangram is CHECK-LIST. To find it, look for the C which is four letters down on the leftmost row, and roll it up, then down.

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