NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #189 (Sunday, September 8 2024)

NYT Strands on a cellphone
(Image credit: Tom’s Guide/NY Times/Shutterstock)
Strands today: Quick menu

Need a bit of help with NYT Strands today? Today's puzzle theme — "A royal shade" — is pretty straightforward, once you figure out what it means.

Below, we've compiled some useful hints for Strands #189, as well as the answers, should it come to that. We'll start off with some clues, before building up to the full answer for Strands #189, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #189.  

Today's NYT Strands answer — Today's theme and hints

The official theme for NYT Strands #189 is... "A royal shade".

And here's an unofficial hint from me: "Color me interested."

If you're still in the dark, here are some useful words to give you those valuable clue tokens:

  • OLIVE
  • PLUME
  • CULL
  • MALL
  • DRIED
  • RICH
  • TALL
  • PURE

Still struggling? The spangram will give you a hint about the connection word. Today, it starts with 'P' and ends in 'S'.

Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's PURPLES.

Today's Strands answers

So, what are today's Strands answers for game #189?

Drumroll, please...

  • LAVENDER
  • PLUM
  • ORCHID
  • MAGENTA
  • LILAC
  • MAUVE
  • VIOLET

Strands #189

(Image credit: Alan Martin)

..and the spangram was PURPLES.

Strands #189

“A royal shade”

🟡🔵🔵🔵

🔵🔵🔵🔵

Hi Strands fans. A nice and simple one to ease you into Sunday. 

It helped that I spotted the spangram right away, with PURPLES spelt across the board from left to right. From there it was just a case of racking my brains for different shades of the color, starting with LAVENDER, PLUM and ORCHID to complete the top half of the grid.

The bottom half started well with MAGENTA spelt out almost directly below the spangram. But after that, it got a little bit trickier as my memory for shades of purple began to dry up.

Eventually, I realized that the two 'L's in the middle of the section were both part of LILAC, and that cleared the space for me to get MAUVE in the bottom right (an oddly spelt word that I might have missed if it weren't cordoned off). 

That left just VIOLET, spelt backwards in the bottom left-hand corner, to complete the puzzle.

Yesterday's Strands answers

Reading this in a later time zone? You can find the full article on yesterday's Strands answers for game #188 right here.

Alan Martin

Freelance contributor Alan has been writing about tech for over a decade, covering phones, drones and everything in between. Previously Deputy Editor of tech site Alphr, his words are found all over the web and in the occasional magazine too. When not weighing up the pros and cons of the latest smartwatch, you'll probably find him tackling his ever-growing games backlog. Or, more likely, playing Spelunky for the millionth time.