Quordle, Strands and Connections answers for Monday, September 21

For Quordle #1701, TechRadar reported four different standard vowels, one repeated letter, and one appearance of Q, Z, X or J. None of the four answers started with the same letter, and the starting letters were W, H, P and L. The answers were WAXEN, HIPPO, PETAL and LEASH. The Quordle Daily Sequence for game #1701 produced ANGEL, OLIVE, GRIMY and MARCH. The writer said WAXEN was the far bigger challenge because of the rare X, adding that he had considered it earlier but ruled it out. He also said the word rhino stayed in his head and caused him to ignore the animal answer HIPPO.

NYT Strands #932 had the theme It’s back! and offered clue words CAUSING, STAR, GRUNT, RING, DARK and RETURN. Its spangram had 13 letters and touched the left side at the second row and the left side at the eighth row. The answers were NEON, LYCRA, GRUNGE, SCRUNCHIES and TRACKSUITS, with NINETIESTREND as the spangram. TechRadar rated the puzzle Hard and the writer used two hints. He said LYCRA made the 1990s theme clear, but he struggled to find other links until plaid shirts and Teen Spirit helped him get GRUNGE; the remaining two words took an embarrassingly long time.

NYT Connections #1198 presented COMPOSE, CHECK, FLY, BEET, BRAH, WORM, SPAM, MATE, CASTLE, CHUM, VIVA, SENT, CHOP, CAPTURE, DRAFTS and SPINNER. The yellow group was Email buttons: COMPOSE, DRAFTS, SENT and SPAM. The green group was Ways to attract fish: CHUM, FLY, SPINNER and WORM. The blue group was Chess verbs: CAPTURE, CASTLE, CHECK and MATE. The purple group was Starts of composers’ names: BEET, BRAH, CHOP and VIVA. TechRadar rated it Hard but the writer scored Perfect. He said he came close to making a group with BRAH, MATE and CHUM before failing to find a fourth friendship-slang tile; he then linked CHUM to fishing through the Jaws character Quint and his bucket of chum.

TechRadar also supplied previous-day answers. Quordle #1700, for Sunday, September 20, was DERBY, LIMBO, GAWKY and REIGN. Strands #931 was BOAST, BRAG, FLEX, GLOAT, STRUT, BLUSTER and POSTURE, with GRANDIOSITY as the spangram. Connections #1197 grouped BLU-RAY, COASTER, SAND DOLLAR and TORTILLA as round flat things; BLUEGRASS, BOURBON, DERBY and FRIED CHICKEN as associated with Kentucky; BLADE, NEAR DARK, SINNERS and TWILIGHT as vampire movies; and HOVER, SKATE, SNOW and SURF as words before boards you ride on.

The reports described Quordle as one of the original Wordle alternatives and still going after more than 1,500 games. TechRadar said Strands is an NYT game that follows Wordle and Connections, has been running for a year and can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile. It said Connections groups are graded green, yellow, blue and purple in increasing difficulty, that players can make up to four mistakes, and that the final group can be solved by elimination. The publications did not report any rule changes or schedule changes.