NYT Strands Hints & Answers for January 15, 2026 (Puzzle #683)

NYT Strands is the New York Times’ daily themed word-search-style game, where you connect letters in a 6×8 grid to uncover a set of related words — plus one longer “spangram” that captures the puzzle’s central idea. If you’re playing along today and want a nudge (or the full spoiler solution), here’s everything for Strands #683 on January 15, 2026.

You can also explore Strands inside the NYT Games app (where Strands appears alongside Wordle, Connections, and more).

Today’s theme (Strands #683)

Theme: “The ears have it!”

Today’s grid is all about ear anatomy — from the parts you can see to the tiny structures that help transmit sound. If you got stuck, the trick is to think in “outer ear → middle ear → inner ear” terms and look for short, obvious building blocks first.

Hints (spoiler-light)

• The theme words are body-part terms, not music words.
• One answer is a common word that also appears in phrases like “ear ___”.
• If you find one of the tiny middle-ear bones, the rest often fall quickly.
• Remember: the spangram is the big, theme-defining entry and stretches across the grid edge-to-edge.