Each morning, a quiet ritual unfolds across thousands of screens: the New York Times Strands puzzle, offering only a theme and a grid, asks players to find what they are looking for before they fully know what that is. On October 2nd, 2026, puzzle #943 posed the theme 'On the sly'—an invitation to think about secrecy, concealment, and the language we use to describe behavior that hides itself from view. CNET, as it does daily, stood ready with hints and answers for those whose search came up empty, honoring the quiet human need to finish what we start.
NYT Strands #943 Answers: 'On the Sly' Puzzle Solutions
Every letter on the board will be used.
Mark
So this is just a word-search game, but you don't get the word list?
Mimi
Right. You get a theme—in this case, "On the sly"—and you have to figure out what words fit that theme and find them in the grid.
Mark
That sounds harder than a regular word search.
Mimi
It is, but there's a built-in help system. If you find any three words of four letters or more, the game highlights one of the actual theme answers for you.
Luke
But you still have to unscramble it yourself, which the article says can be very tough. So the help is partial.
Mimi
Exactly. It's a nudge, not a solution.
Mark
What made puzzle 943 specifically difficult?
Mimi
The theme answers were all synonyms for secretive behavior—SHIFTY, COVERT, FURTIVE, DEVIOUS, STEALTHY. They're not common words in everyday speech, and they were woven into the grid in a complex way.
Luke
The article doesn't actually explain how they were woven in, though. We know the spangram SNEAKINGAROUND starts five letters down on the far left, but we don't know the actual difficulty of the grid layout.
Mark
What's a spangram?
Mimi
It's a theme word that stretches all the way across the board, from one edge to the other. When you find all the theme answers and the spangram, every letter gets used.
Mark
So it's the final piece?
Mimi
Yes. And in this puzzle, it was literally the phrase that describes the whole theme—sneaking around.
Il Polso
- Puzzle #943 arrived with a deceptively familiar theme—'On the sly'—but its answers, SHIFTY, COVERT, FURTIVE, DEVIOUS, and STEALTHY, were woven into the grid with enough complexity to stall even seasoned solvers.
- Unlike traditional word searches, Strands withholds the word list entirely, forcing players to define the target while hunting for it—a disorienting loop that is the game's central tension.
- A built-in mercy system rewards players who find any four-letter words at all, eventually illuminating a hidden theme answer, though the puzzle still demands they unscramble it themselves.
- The spangram SNEAKINGAROUND—stretching edge to edge across the board—served as both the puzzle's capstone and its purest expression of theme, requiring players to trace a winding path through letters shared with other answers.
- CNET's daily answer guides have become a quiet institution, absorbing the frustration of stumped solvers and keeping the morning ritual intact for those who would otherwise walk away unfinished.
Each morning, a quiet ritual unfolds across thousands of screens: the New York Times Strands puzzle, offering only a theme and a grid, asks players to find what they are looking for before they fully know what that is. On October 2nd, 2026, puzzle #943 posed the theme 'On the sly'—an invitation to think about secrecy, concealment, and the language we use to describe behavior that hides itself from view. CNET, as it does daily, stood ready with hints and answers for those whose search came up empty, honoring the quiet human need to finish what we start.
Every morning, thousands of people open their browsers to find the New York Times Strands puzzle waiting—a word-search game that offers no list of words to find, only a theme and a grid of letters. On October 2nd, 2026, puzzle #943 arrived with the theme 'On the sly,' asking players to locate words about secrecy and concealment without being told what those words were.
For experienced players, the answers can surface quickly. But Strands includes a mercy mechanism: find any three words of four letters or more—theme-related or not—and the game will highlight one of the actual answers. It still makes you unscramble it yourself, which can be its own small ordeal.
Puzzle 943's theme answers—SHIFTY, COVERT, FURTIVE, DEVIOUS, STEALTHY—demanded both vocabulary and pattern recognition. Some players may have started with common words like SHIFT or COVER and built outward from there. The real prize, as always, was the spangram: SNEAKINGAROUND, a phrase that stretched from one edge of the board to the other, its letters shared with the surrounding theme answers. Finding it meant the puzzle was complete, every letter on the board accounted for.
CNET publishes daily solutions and hints for Strands alongside the Times' other games, treating the morning puzzle as a legitimate cultural ritual worth supporting. Some themes have proven notoriously brutal—dated slang like PHAT, or marine biology terms few players carry in their everyday vocabulary. Puzzle 943, built around synonyms for secrecy, landed somewhere in the middle: approachable for those who knew the words, genuinely difficult for those who didn't.
Every morning, thousands of people open their browsers to find the New York Times Strands puzzle waiting for them—a word-search game with a twist. Unlike traditional word finds, Strands gives you no list of words to hunt for. Instead, you're given only a theme and a grid of letters, and you have to figure out what you're looking for as you look for it. On Friday, October 2nd, 2026, puzzle number 943 arrived with a theme that seemed straightforward enough: "On the sly." The puzzle wanted words about secrecy, about doing things quietly, about the kind of behavior people engage in when they don't want to be noticed.
For players who know the game well, spotting the theme answers can happen almost instantly. The mind recognizes the pattern and the words seem to jump off the board. But Strands has built in a mercy for those moments when the pattern stays hidden. If you can find any words of four letters or more—any words at all, theme-related or not—the puzzle will eventually reward you. Find three such words, and the game highlights one of the actual theme answers you're supposed to find. It's a loophole, a way to make progress even when you're stuck, though the puzzle still makes you unscramble the revealed answer yourself, which can be its own challenge.
Puzzle 943 was not an easy one. The theme answers—SHIFTY, COVERT, FURTIVE, DEVIOUS, STEALTHY—all describe secretive or deceptive behavior, but finding them in the grid required both pattern recognition and vocabulary. Some players might have started by looking for common four-letter words like SHIFT, FAVE, SIRE, or RISE, using those as stepping stones to unlock hints. Others might have spotted STEAL or COVER and built from there. The puzzle's designer had woven the answers into the grid with enough complexity that even experienced players would need to work.
The real prize in any Strands puzzle is the spangram—a special theme word that stretches from one edge of the board to the other, using letters that also belong to other theme answers. In puzzle 943, that spangram was SNEAKINGAROUND, a phrase that captures the entire spirit of the puzzle's theme. To find it, a player had to start with the S located five letters down on the far-left row and trace the letters as they wound through the grid. Once all five theme answers and the spangram were found, every single letter on the board would be used, the puzzle complete.
CNET publishes the answers to these puzzles every day, along with hints for players who want to solve it themselves before looking at the solution. The publication also covers the New York Times' other daily games—Mini Crossword, Connections, and Connections: Sports Edition—treating puzzle-solving as a legitimate part of how people spend their mornings. Over time, certain puzzle themes have proven consistently difficult. Dated slang, for instance, trips up players who never used the language when it was current; the word PHAT became infamous for stumping solvers. Marine biology themes have also proven brutal, with words like BALEEN, RIGHT, BIGEYE, and SKIPJACK requiring specialized knowledge that most players simply don't have. Puzzle 943, with its focus on synonyms for secrecy, fell somewhere in the middle—accessible to those who knew the vocabulary, but genuinely tricky for others.
Citazioni salienti
For every three words of four or more letters found, the puzzle will highlight one of the answers.— CNET's explanation of Strands mechanics
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