Today's NYT Strands hints and answer: solutions to game #739, March 12

Need a bit of help with NYT Strands today? No shame in that, and you've come to the right place. Below, we've compiled some useful hints for Strands #739 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 #739, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #739.

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

The official theme for NYT Strands #739 is... "Out-and-out".

And here's an unofficial hint from me: "100%."

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

• TEMPLE
• ROUGH
• COME
• VOLE
• RELATED
• WETTER
• LATIN

Still struggling? The spangram touches two opposite sides of the board (but can start and end anywhere), and will give you a hint about the connection between the answers. Today, it starts with 'D' and ends with 'L'.

Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's DYEDINTHEWOOL.

Today's Strands answers

So, what are today's Strands answers for game #739?

Drumroll, please...

• TOTAL
• COMPLETE
• VERITABLE
• THOROUGH
• UTTER

...and the spangram was DYEDINTHEWOOL.

Strands #739

“Out-and-out”

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Hi Strands fans. I lucked out with today's puzzle, not having a clue what the theme of "Out-and-out" meant when I first saw it.

But then I accidentally connected TOTALLY near the top-left corner, while looking for clue words and it turned blue. With the four letters immediately above it spelling "dyed", I followed this along and was able to complete the spangram of DYEDINTHEWOOL, with it ending at the bottom of the grid.

I still didn't know exactly what I was looking for, but with the board split in two, things were quite a bit easier. I found COMPLETE in the top-right corner, which only left room for one more word below it: VERITABLE.

There were two answers left to find on the opposite side. I connected THOROUGH in the bottom-left corner first, and that just left UTTER above it to complete the puzzle.

Yesterday's Strands answers

Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Strands answers for game #738.

• ARMOR
• AGILITY
• MIMICRY
• CAMOUFLAGE
• DISTRACTION

...and the spangram was DEFENSES.

Strands #738

“Survival mode”

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Hi Strands fans. As you can see from the summary above, I was not at the races today.

I needed no fewer than three clues to get started. The first revealed ARMOR on the right-hand side, the second AGILITY on the left, and the third MIMICRY in the middle.

What do these things and the theme of "Survival mode" have in common? The spangram of DEFENSES, spelt diagonally from the top-left corner to the bottom right.

With that divider in place, I was able to stumble over the line without using any more clues.

CAMOUFLAGE was the only word that could be made from the remaining letters in the top-right corner, while DISTRACTION is what you get with the characters left at the bottom.