Today's NYT Strands hints and answer: solutions to game #773, April 15

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 #773 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 #773, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #773.

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

The official theme for NYT Strands #773 is... "Gift of the month".

And here's an unofficial hint from me: "Gems for your DOB."

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

• POSTERS
• QUIET
• DERIDE
• PENTAGON
• DATA
• POSER
• REPEAT

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 'B' and ends with 'E'.

Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's BIRTHSTONE.

Today's Strands answers

So, what are today's Strands answers for game #773?

Drumroll, please...

• OPAL
• TOPAZ
• DIAMOND
• GARNET
• PERIDOT
• TURQUOISE

...and the spangram was BIRTHSTONE.

Strands #773

“Gift of the month”

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Hi Strands fans. This was always going to be an uphill struggle for me. Not only do I know nothing about birthstones (mine is emerald, apparently), but I managed to misread the theme as "Gift of the mouth" rather than "Gift of the month".

That meant I wasted a lot of time looking for synonyms for talkativeness before I eventually gave up and used a clue. When it revealed OPAL at the top of the grid, I realized my mistake, and promptly connected the spangram of BIRTHSTONE from the middle of the left-hand side to the bottom-right corner.

Now I just had to think of possible stones. I found TOPAZ isolated in the top-left corner, and then looked for DIAMOND as I assumed it was one. Sure enough, it was there in the bottom-left corner.

After that, I was stuck again, and had to use another clue which revealed GARNET - not something I would have got in a million years. That also applies to the other word in the bottom half, which I was only able to get because it was in a straight line with no alternatives: PERIDOT.

That just left the anagram in the top-right corner to unpick. It was, of course, TURQUOISE.

Yesterday's Strands answers

Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Strands answers for game #772.

• HAZY
• CLOUDY
• BLURRY
• FADED
• SOFT
• MUTED
• BEDIMMED

...and the spangram was OUTOFFOCUS.Strands #772

“It's a little unclear”

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Hi Strands fans. I owe completing today's puzzle without clues to the intriguing 'Z' in the middle of the board.

With the theme of "It's a little unclear", I was expecting it to be part of "fuzzy", but with just the one 'Z', I realized it was actually a synonym: HAZY.

From there, it was a case of looking for other similar words. I found CLOUDY in the bottom-right corner, followed by BLURRY in the top right. FADED started to its left and ended between the two.

At the moment, these words were all about things lacking definition, but when I found the word SOFT spelt backwards along the left-hand side, I realized this was specifically about cameras. I was subsequently able to connect the spangram of OUTOFFOCUS, which stretched from the top-left corner to the bottom left, via the middle of the grid.

Two answers were left to find in the remaining gaps. MUTED was spelt downwards on the right-hand side, which just BEDIMMED on the left to complete the puzzle.