Listed here are the solutions for the NYT Strands puzzle #656 immediately, launched on December nineteenth, 2025, and a few hints that can assist you remedy them.
The New York Occasions are recognized for the wide selection of video games they publish for readers to finish on the each day. That they had additionally printed the viral phrase recreation, Wordle, in 2022, so as to add to their assortment.
A brand new recreation has been launched by the paper, referred to as Strands, which is at the moment in beta. On this recreation, there’s a theme of phrases on a board and you have to discover the theme associated phrases.
After you have discovered a theme associated phrase, it is going to keep stuffed in blue and to create these phrases, you’ll need to pull or kind the letters. All the letters on the board are used to make up phrases for the theme and the letters don’t overlap into different phrases.

There’s additionally a “spangram” which is a phrase on the board that describes the theme of the puzzle for the day. It should contact two reverse sides of the board and could also be two phrases.
After you have discovered the spangram phrase, it is going to keep highlighted in yellow.
An instance of a spangram is FRUIT, and the opposite themed phrases could be PEAR, BANANA and APPLE.

In case you are struggling to seek out any phrases regarding the theme, you’ll be able to attempt to discover different phrases on the board, which won’t keep highlighted, however will show you how to to get hints. You have to to seek out three non-theme phrases to get a touch.
Strands 656 Hints Today (December nineteenth, 2025)
Today’s theme or trace for the puzzle is, “ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK” and there are seven theme phrases to be discovered.

Extra hints that can assist you remedy the Strands puzzle launched immediately is:
- Three phrases within the Spangram immediately.
- There’s six, three and three letters within the Spangram phrases immediately.
Strands 656 Spangram Reply Today (December nineteenth, 2025)
With each puzzle, there’s a spangram, which helps describe the theme. The spangram for the puzzle launched on December nineteenth is:
MAKING THE CUT
The phrase begins on the left and ends on the proper aspect of the grid.
The precise location of the Spangram phrase will be seen under:

Strands 656 Answer Today (12/19/2025)
Listed here are the entire different themed phrases for the Stands 656 puzzle:
- JULIENNE
- CUBE
- SLICE
- MINCE
- CHIFFONADE
- DICE

Tell us within the feedback under which phrases you bought caught on.
