Today’s NYT ‘Strands’ Hints And Answers For Wednesday, November 5

It’s another perfect day for puzzle-solving, though perhaps even more perfect for long walks down forest trails. It’s been an absolutely beautiful fall so far, one almost hates to waste any time inside. I won’t waste much of yours. If you’re looking for a little extra help with your daily Strands puzzle, I have clues below to help you uncover all the words on today’s grid and the solutions after that.

Looking for Tuesday’s Strands? Check out our guide right here.


How To Play Strands

Strands is the newest game in the New York Times’ stable of puzzle games. It’s a fun twist on classic word search games. Every day we’re given a new theme and then tasked with uncovering all the words on the grid that fit that theme, including a spangram that spans two sides of the board. One of these words is the spangram which crosses from one side of the grid to another and reveals even more about the day’s theme.

Spoilers ahead.

Today’s Strands Hints

Read on for today’s theme and some hints to help you uncover today’s words.

Today’s Theme: The butterfly effect

Hint: This has nothing to do with the butterfly effect theory. Think more literally.

Here are the first two letters of each word:

Remember, spoilers ahead!

What Are Today’s Strands Answers?

Today’s spangram is: MONARCHS

Here’s the full list of words:

  • CHRYSALIS
  • CATERPILLAR
  • MILKWEED
  • HATCH
  • MIGRATE

Here’s the completed Strands grid:

Today’s Strands Breakdown

This was kind of a tricky Strands, though far from the hardest I’ve seen. I actually found CHRYSALIS almost immediately, though it took me a bit longer to find the hungry, hungry CATERPILLAR. Did you know that MILKWEED is the only thing said caterpillar can eat after it HATCHes? This makes the destination the MONARCHS MIGRATE to incredibly important. Disrupting these environments can have a profoundly tragic impact on these beautiful butterflies.

The sad news is, the population of both eastern and western monarch butterflies has dropped by millions over the years, thanks to habitat destruction, deforestation, pesticides and climate change. We may someday live in a world with no monarch butterflies at all. Preservationists say one thing people can do is plant native milkweed in their gardens, as well as nectar-rich native flowers.

(P.S. I wrote recently about the actual “butterfly effect” and its impact on Game Of Thrones.)


How did you do on your Strands today? Let me know on Twitter and Facebook.

Be sure to check out my blog for my daily Wordle guides as well as all my other writing about TV shows, streaming guides, movie reviews, video game coverage and much more. Thanks for stopping by!

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2025/11/04/todays-nyt-strands-hints-answers-wednesday-november-5/