NYT Strands hint: NYT Strands Hints for August 14, 2025: Today’s Clues, Spangram and full answer list

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For players of The New York Times’ increasingly popular daily word puzzle, NYT Strands, Thursday’s edition brought a theme centred around truth, authenticity, and fairness. Those attempting the August 14, 2025, puzzle found themselves connecting words that all pointed towards being “fair and square,” with the day’s Spangram providing the key to unlocking the grid.

NYT Strands: The Theme for Today’s Puzzle

For August 14, the underlying concept for NYT Strands revolved around ways to describe something genuine. The puzzle’s thematic focus meant that every word in the grid tied back to the idea of authenticity — whether in legal, cultural, or colloquial terms.
Players who recognised the theme early could more easily spot the connected words scattered across the board, while others leaned on the provided NYT Strands Hints to guide them towards the solution.

NYT Strands Hints for August 14, 2025

To help solvers without giving away the complete answers upfront, two main hints were provided, as per a report by Beebom:

Hint #1: A food prepared, sold, or consumed in accordance with Jewish dietary laws.
Hint #2: Something of undisputed origin, not a copy.

The combination of these clues encouraged players to think broadly — from cultural practices to descriptive terms in everyday language.

NYT Strands Spangram and Its Clues

A defining feature of every Strands puzzle is its Spangram, a single word or phrase stretching between two opposite sides of the grid. For August 14, the Spangram clue was: to describe something that’s neither specious nor counterfeit.

Spangram Position: Mostly vertical
Starting Letters: “BO”

The answer: BONAFIDE.
Identifying the Spangram early often unlocks the remainder of the puzzle, as it summarises the day’s theme in one concise expression.

NYT Strands Full List of Theme Words for August 14

The complete set of theme-related words, as per Beebom’s report, for today’s puzzle was:

REAL
GENUINE
TRUE
KOSHER
AUTHENTIC
LEGITIMATE

These words, combined with the Spangram BONAFIDE, reinforced the authenticity-based theme running through the day’s game.

How NYT Strands Works

Introduced by The New York Times as part of its expanding roster of daily word challenges, NYT Strands is designed to test a player’s vocabulary and ability to find thematic connections.
Each puzzle features a hidden Spangram — a long word or phrase that spans the board — along with several shorter theme words. Players select connected letters on the grid to form valid words, with the Spangram acting as both a hint and a central thread tying the theme together.

Notably, the Spangram does not always begin or end at the edge of the board, making its identification a matter of careful observation and deduction.

NYT Strands: Why Today’s Puzzle Stood Out

The August 14 edition struck a balance between straightforward words like TRUE and trickier inclusions such as KOSHER, which required cultural knowledge beyond general English vocabulary. Additionally, LEGITIMATE and AUTHENTIC were long enough to require multiple scanning passes for many players, while BONAFIDE’s starting “BO” clue proved a useful anchor.
For regular players, today’s puzzle highlighted why NYT Strands has become a staple — it challenges both language skills and associative thinking while keeping the format concise enough for a quick daily brain exercise.