Strands today: Quick menu

Need a bit of help with NYT Strands today? Today's puzzle — "✨🔥🌹💀🤩👀💐" — seems confusing at first, but will become clear once you get the first couple.

Below, we've compiled some useful hints for Strands #77, 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 #77, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #77.  

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

The official theme for NYT Strands #77 is... "✨🔥🌹💀🤩👀💐"

And here's an unofficial hint from me: "Say what you see"

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

• SULK
• PARS
• SOCK
• QUOTE
• RASPIE
• RATS

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

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Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's EMOJIS.

Today's Strands answers

So, what are today's Strands answers for game #77?

Drumroll, please...

• EYES
• SKULL
• ROSE
• FIRE
• SPARKLES
• BOUQUET
• STARSTRUCK

...and the spangram was EMOJIS.

🟡🔵🔵🔵

🔵🔵🔵🔵

Ahoy Strands fans. A nice easy one today as every answer is actually there in pictographic form in the theme. Yes, each emoji relates to one of the seven answers.

But before you get onto that, you'll probably note the spangram, as it's spelled out from left to right along the middle of the grid. I take slight issue with it, as I'd argue "emoji" is already a plural without the 'S', but I'm probably onto a losing battle with that one. Either way, EMOJIS is the spangram.

From there, I saw EYES in the bottom left, and SKULL just above it. At that point, I noticed that both had emoji represented in the theme, so realized that each icon must be an answer.

That made the rest of the puzzle a doddle. ROSE and FIRE were on opposite sides of the grid, but very hard to misinterpret from their respective emoji. 

SPARKLES was a bit trickier, but there wasn't really another option in the bottom half of the grid, which helped. 

BOUQUET eliminated that tricky 'Q' just above the spangram, and that only left one set of letters to decode. I clicked through STARSTRUCK and completed the puzzle in reasonably quick time.

Yesterday's Strands answers

Reading this in a later time zone? You can find the full article on yesterday's Strands answers for game #76 right here.