NYT Strands Hints and Answers for Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026 (#969): Hints for the Spangram and Five Theme Words

Today’s Strands from The New York Times (NYT) is puzzle #969, for Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, and its theme clue is “Comedy club.” Think of the different styles of act you might see on a stage built for laughs. The puzzle was constructed by Christina Iverson and edited by Tracy Bennett. Below are hints for the spangram and each theme word; the answers wait in a marked spoiler section at the end.

How Strands works

The board is six letters wide and eight tall. Theme words are made by linking letters that touch, up, down, sideways or diagonally, and every letter is used exactly once. One special answer, the spangram, names the theme and stretches from one side of the board to the opposite side. Find three non-theme words and you earn a hint that highlights the letters of a theme word.

Spangram hints

• Hint 1

  It is a two-word phrase for comedy in general, written as one word.
• Hint 2

  It starts with the word for something amusing and ends with a word for commerce.
• Hint 3

  Thirteen letters, starting with F and ending with S.

Theme word hints

There are five theme words, all kinds of comedy:

• 9 letters, starts with B

  a theatrical style of parody and comic song and dance.
• 5 letters, starts with F

  a comedy built on absurd situations and mix-ups.
• 6 letters, starts with I

  comedy made up on the spot, without a script.
• 6 letters, starts with S

  a short comic scene.
• 9 letters, starts with S

  physical comedy, such as pratfalls and pie in the face.

Solving tips

Start with the spangram. At 13 letters it crosses the board from one edge to the opposite one; on today’s board it begins on the bottom edge, near the right, and climbs to the top edge on the left. The two nine-letter theme words are the longest after it. The shortest theme word has five letters, so look for it once the long words are out of the way. If you get stuck, spell any ordinary words you can see to earn a hint.

Keep a streak log on our printable weekly calendar or the October 2026 printable calendar.

More of today’s puzzles: Wordle hints, Connections hints and Pips hints.

Today’s Strands answers (spoilers)

Stop here if you still want to solve it yourself.

• Spangram: Funny Business
• Theme words: Burlesque, Farce, Improv, Sketch, Slapstick

All six answers fit the clue: funny business is the spangram, and the five theme words are kinds of comedy you could see at a comedy club.

We checked the answers against the puzzle’s official data before posting. Puzzle #970 arrives at midnight.