NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #405 (Saturday, April 12 2025)

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Need help with Strands #405? Here are some hints and the answers

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Need some assistance with NYT Strands today? Today's theme — "Get your mind out of the gutter" — is a little confusing, even with a few answers on the board.

Below, we've compiled some useful hints for Strands #405, 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 #405, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #405.

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

The official theme for NYT Strands #405 is... "Get your mind out of the gutter".

And here's an unofficial hint from me: "In need of a clean".

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

  • STADIUM
  • SODAS
  • DINED
  • WILDS
  • SWORDS
  • TIDY
  • DULL

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

Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's DIRTYWORDS.

Today's Strands answers

So, what are today's Strands answers for game #405?

Drumroll, please...

  • GRIMY
  • MUDDY
  • POLLUTED
  • STAINED
  • FILTHY
  • UNKEMPT

Strands #405

(Image credit: Alan Martin)

...and the spangram was DIRTYWORDS.

Strands #405

“Get your mind out of the gutter”

💡🔵🔵🔵

🔵🟡🔵🔵

Hi Strands fans. A quality pun from the NYT puzzle setters today. With hindsight, "Get your mind out of the gutter" could only be about DIRTYWORDS - or rather, words referring to things that are unclean.

I didn't cotton onto that right away, so needed a clue to get started. That revealed GRIMY along the left-hand side, which put me on the right track. I followed this up with MUDDY spelt backwards from the middle of the grid to the top, and POLLUTED in the bottom-right corner.

STAINED was in the top-right corner, and when I found "words" in the top half of the grid, the spangram finally clicked. I wrote out DIRTYWORDS backwards from the bottom of the board to the top.

Two answers were still at large. FILTHY was in the top-left corner, and that just left UNKEPT in the bottom left 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 #404 right here.

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Alan Martin
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.

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