NYT Strands puzzle #542, dated August 27, 2025, uses the theme “Go with the flow.” If you want a nudge before seeing the answers, think of places and features where water gathers or moves.
Hint for Strands #542
The theme points to different kinds of bodies of water. The indexed answer guide also gives the non-answer hint “Splish-splash.”
Spoilers: answers and spangram
Stop here if you want to solve the puzzle without seeing the full answers.
The spangram is BODIESOFWATER.
The seven theme words are:
- BAYOU
- HARBOR
- LAGOON
- LAKE
- OCEAN
- POND
- SWAMP
How the answers fit the theme
Each answer names a place or feature associated with water: from a bayou, harbor, lagoon, lake, ocean, pond or swamp to the broader category named by the spangram, “bodies of water.”
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsAbout the hints
A secondary indexed result says that finding any three words of four or more letters unlocks an in-game theme-word hint. The detail is not confirmed here by an official NYT source, so treat it as an unverified guide rather than a definitive statement of the game’s rules.
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