Each day, a small grid of letters invites solvers to discover not just words, but a unifying idea — today, the act of changing course. Puzzle 947 from the New York Times Strands series asks players to find the shape of reversal hidden in plain sight, guided only by the cryptic nudge 'not this, but that.' It is a quiet meditation on redirection, dressed in the form of a word game.
NYT Strands #947 Answers: 'Changing Course' Puzzle Solutions
Every letter on the board will be used.
Mark
So this puzzle is about "changing course"—that's the theme. But what does that actually mean when you're staring at a grid of letters?
Mimi
It means every answer you're looking for is a word that describes some kind of reversal or shift in direction. FLIP, UNDO, REVERSE—they all fit that idea. The puzzle is asking you to think about what it means to go back or change your mind.
Luke
But here's the thing—the clue is "not this, but that." That's pretty abstract. How many solvers actually connect that clue to BACKPEDAL or OVERTURN without already knowing the answers?
Mimi
Fair point. That's why the hint system exists. If you can't see the theme, you just find any four-letter words you can, and after three of them, the puzzle gives you one answer to work with.
Mark
And those helper words—DALE, LEAD, TREE—they're not theme answers themselves?
Mimi
No, they're just regular words hiding in the grid. They're scaffolding. They help you unlock the actual answers.
Luke
So the puzzle is really two games at once: one for people who see the theme immediately, and one for people who have to grind through finding random words until the puzzle helps them.
Mimi
Exactly. And the spangram—that's the word that runs all the way across the grid. When you find it along with the other four answers, you've used every letter.
Mark
Every letter? So there's no waste?
Mimi
None. That's the whole point. A solved Strands puzzle is complete.
Luke
The source doesn't actually tell us what the spangram is. It just says "Today's Strands spangram" and then nothing. So we know there is one, but we don't know what it is.
Mimi
True. The article cuts off there. But solvers will find it when they solve the puzzle.
The Pulse
- The puzzle's theme — 'changing course' — resists easy recognition until solvers begin to see the pattern connecting FLIP, UNDO, REVERSE, OVERTURN, and BACKPEDAL.
- Without a list of target words, players must navigate the grid on instinct and inference, making the early moments of each puzzle genuinely disorienting.
- A built-in lifeline exists: find any three words of four letters or more and the puzzle surrenders one theme answer automatically, easing the tension for stuck solvers.
- The spangram — a word that stretches edge to edge across the entire board — serves as the final confirmation, consuming every last letter when the puzzle is complete.
Each day, a small grid of letters invites solvers to discover not just words, but a unifying idea — today, the act of changing course. Puzzle 947 from the New York Times Strands series asks players to find the shape of reversal hidden in plain sight, guided only by the cryptic nudge 'not this, but that.' It is a quiet meditation on redirection, dressed in the form of a word game.
The New York Times Strands puzzle for October 6th centers on a deceptively simple idea: changing course. Its guiding clue, 'not this, but that,' nudges solvers toward five answers that each capture a different shade of reversal — the snap of a FLIP, the quiet erasure of UNDO, the deliberate weight of REVERSE, the force of OVERTURN, and the slow retreat of BACKPEDAL.
Unlike traditional word searches, Strands withholds its target words entirely. Players must feel their way through the grid using only the theme as a compass. The game does offer one concession: discover any three words of four letters or more — words like DALE, LORE, or ROTE — and the puzzle will automatically reveal a theme answer, though solvers must still unscramble it to make use of it.
Completing the puzzle means more than finding the five theme words. A spangram — a special answer that travels from one edge of the board to the other — must also be located. When everything falls into place, every letter on the grid is accounted for, leaving a board with no gaps and no remainders. That seamless completeness is the puzzle's quiet reward, the signal that the solver has not just found words, but understood the idea holding them all together.
The New York Times Strands puzzle for Tuesday, October 6th presents solvers with a theme centered on changing course—a concept that plays out across five interconnected answers hidden within the grid. The puzzle's guiding clue, "not this, but that," points toward words that capture the idea of shifting direction, reversing position, or abandoning one path for another.
Strands operates differently from traditional word searches. Rather than receiving a list of target words upfront, players must discover them on their own, guided only by the puzzle's theme. The game offers a built-in assist: find any word of four letters or more, and after accumulating three such discoveries, the puzzle automatically reveals one of the theme answers. This mechanic allows solvers to make progress even when the theme remains opaque, though the revealed answer still requires unscrambling to be useful.
For puzzle 947, the five theme answers that tie directly to the "changing course" concept are FLIP, UNDO, REVERSE, OVERTURN, and BACKPEDAL. Each word captures a distinct flavor of reversal or redirection—from the quick pivot of a flip to the deliberate retreat of backpedaling. These answers form the core of the puzzle's solution.
Solvers attempting to unlock hints through the three-word method might find success with words like DALE, LEAD, COLE, CLOP, SEER, LORE, TOOL, DATE, ROTE, TREE, or TREES. None of these are theme answers themselves, but discovering them triggers the puzzle's hint system, gradually exposing the answers that do fit the theme.
The puzzle also contains a spangram—a special theme word that stretches from one edge of the grid to the opposite edge, using a continuous path of letters. When all theme answers, including the spangram, have been found and placed correctly, every letter on the board is consumed, leaving no gaps or unused squares. This completeness serves as confirmation that the puzzle has been solved.
Today's puzzle sits at the moderate difficulty level typical of mid-week Strands offerings. The theme itself is straightforward enough once recognized, but some of the answers prove challenging to unscramble from the letter grid, particularly for solvers working without hints. The puzzle rewards both pattern recognition and persistence, two qualities that define the Strands experience across its daily iterations.
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