Puzzle Overview
Here are today’s Connections hints and answers for NYT Connections No. 1,246 on Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026.
Today’s Connections hints
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Yellow group hint: Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Green group hint: Fancy updos and perms.
Blue group hint: Explain it to me.
Purple group hint: Sounds like…
Solution Breakdown
Yellow group: Muscular.
Green group: Hair salon services.
Blue group: Things that help make sense of a situation.
Purple group: Vegetable homophones.
CNET publishes daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.
The yellow words in today’s Connections
The theme is muscular.
The four answers are built, cut, jacked and ripped.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is hair salon services.
The four answers are blowout, color, extensions and trim.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is things that help make sense of a situation.
The four answers are clarity, context, insight and perspective.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is vegetable homophones.
The four answers are carat (carrot), charred (chard), Korn (corn) and leak (leek).
Gameplay Guide
In Connections, you look at a grid of 16 words and pick four words that have a connection to one another. You do this four times until all 16 words in the puzzle are grouped. The tough part is that Times puzzle editor Wyna Liu chooses words that could fit in multiple groups. The obvious guess — hey, those are four animals! — is almost always going to be wrong. I’ve compiled my favorite tips for Connections if you need a boost.
The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.
