NYT Strands #881 Hints and Answers for Aug. 1

Each day, a small puzzle arrives in the hands of millions — not to test knowledge exactly, but to invite a particular kind of attention: the slow, patient noticing of patterns hiding in plain sight. The New York Times Strands puzzle for August 1st, number 881, organizes itself around the human impulse to cry 'As if!' — that instinctive rejection of the implausible. In finding words like LUDICROUS and PREPOSTEROUS, solvers are not merely completing a grid; they are rehearsing the vocabulary of disbelief, which has always been one of the mind's more necessary tools.