Today's NYT Strands Hints, Answer and Help for Dec. 11, #283

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Here’s my Strands confession of the day. Sometimes, even after I’ve been gifted the letters of one of the answers, I’m completely mystified. I can’t unscramble them. I had a few of those in today’s answers. Usually, if it’s a topic I know super well, I can see the word in the letters, but today wasn’t one of those days. Even though — hint, hint — I took wood shop in seventh grade and made a very lovely trinket box that I still have today. Got an A minus too. But enough about me, let’s get at the Strands answers for today.

Also, I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

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

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Board certified.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Sawdust time.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints, but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

NOEL, SONE, SIRE, DEWS, WEED, DILL, SHINE, WIRE, LODE, LATE, RATE, RATES, WELD, WORE, SWORE, SHIRE, HIRE, THIS, WORK, SORE, PLAN.

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you’ve got all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

VISE, DRILL, LATHE, PLANE, CHISEL, JIGSAW, SANDER

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is WOODWORKING. To find it, start with the W that’s three letters over and three rows down from the farthest left row, then wind around and down.