Strands: A Light, Floating Theme About Defiance
2026-09-15 · Theme: Things that defy gravity
This is an easy board, but not a mindless one. The five theme words have a combined 37 letters, and the spangram's 11 letters make it the longest thing on the grid, which should be your anchor.
The theme wording is broad, but the list is anchored by concrete, visible objects. The range from a 10-letter machine to a 5-letter atmospheric phenomenon keeps you from fixating on a single scale. What connects them is a physical defiance of falling, not a metaphorical one. With five distinct starting letters, you’re unlikely to get stuck in a corner hunting for synonyms.
Spangram hint
It's the conceptual category for the entire theme, an 11-letter compound word describing the absence of gravitational pull.
Word hints
- 1
What a traffic reporter uses to hover over a gridlocked highway.
- 2
The thing a bored student folds and launches across a classroom.
- 3
A bioluminescent beetle known for its erratic, glowing flight at dusk.
- 4
A visible mass of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere.
- 5
The visible particles and gases given off by a burning substance, rising in a plume.
The main challenge here is just spotting the long spangram before you run out of hints.