NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #388 (Wednesday, March 26 2025)

(Image credit: Tom’s Guide/NY Times/Shutterstock)

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Need some assistance with NYT Strands today? Today's theme — "In the circle of life" — is pretty obvious, if you're of a certain age.

Below, we've compiled some useful hints for Strands #388, 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 #388, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #388.

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

The official theme for NYT Strands #388 is... "In the circle of life".

And here's an unofficial hint from me: "Simba and friends".

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

KITE
BEER
GATE
NAIL
MILL
KART
HOLY

Still struggling? The spangram will give you a hint about the connection word. Today, it starts with L and ends with G.

Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's LIONKING.

Today's Strands answers

So, what are today's Strands answers for game #388?

Drumroll, please...

WARTHOG
ZEBRA
MEERKAT
HORNBILL
HYENA
ELEPHANT

...and the spangram was LIONKING.

Strands #388

“In the circle of life”

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Hi Strands fans. A nice and easy one if you were a child of the 90s like me.

"In the circle of life" can only refer to Disney's The Lion King - and that meant I found the spangram of LIONKING right away.

After briefly looking for character names, I got WARTHOG in the top-left corner and realized this was actually about species.

ZEBRA was in the bottom-left corner, followed by MEERKAT in the bottom right. HORNBILL - as in "Kings don't need advice from little hornbills for a start" - was above it.

I had two gaps to fill. The one in the bottom half was HYENA, and the top one was, of course, ELEPHANT.

Yesterday's Strands answers

Reading this in a later time zone? You can find the full article on yesterday's Strands answers for game #387 right here.

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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.