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The June 18, 2025, NYT Strands theme is “Down time.” If you want a nudge before seeing the answers, the theme is about not feeling too happy. The full solution is below, clearly marked for spoilers.
Hints for Strands #472
- Theme clue: “Down time.”
- Gentler hint: Not too happy.
- Spangram: It has seven letters and runs from the left edge to the right edge of the grid. TechRadar places its endpoints on row five.
- Starting letters: The seven answers begin ME, WO, BL, SA, TE, DO, and GL.
- Words for in-game hints: CHOW, BOWL, HOWL, ELBOW, LOOM, and GLOOM are listed as valid non-theme words that can help earn hints.
Full answer for June 18, 2025
Spoilers below.
- MELANCHOLY
- WOEBEGONE
- BLUE
- SADNESS — spangram
- TEARY
- DOLEFUL
- GLOOMY
These are the complete answer set for game #472. Answer guides display the words in different orders, so the sequence above does not indicate an official solving order.
How Strands hints work
Strands is a letter-grid word puzzle. You connect letters in adjacent cells, including diagonally, to form the theme words. The spangram names the shared idea and connects opposite sides of the board. Finding three valid words that are not theme answers earns an in-game hint that highlights letters from a theme answer.
Forbes contributor Kris Holt described the spangram as a special word that “tells you what the words have in common” in an article published June 17, 2025, for this puzzle: Forbes’ June 18 Strands hints and answers.
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How the answers were cross-checked
TechRadar, Forbes, and Wordhint independently list the same theme clue and answer set for the June 18, 2025 puzzle. The specific answer is therefore reported here as a cross-checked result from those guides, not as an official NYT quotation or archive entry.
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- TechRadar’s Strands guide for game #472
- Forbes’ Strands guide for June 18
- Wordhint’s June 18, 2025 archive entry
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