By Akash Wadhwani. Checked against two sources, updated 2:56 PM ET.
Sixteen words and four groups of four. Yellow is usually the straightforward one and purple is usually wordplay, so the hints below go one step at a time.
Yellow, Ways To Personalize A Car: BUMPER STICKER, FUZZY DICE, HOOD ORNAMENT, VANITY PLATE.
Green, People In An Online Forum: LURKER, POSTER, SPAMMER, TROLL.
Blue, Things That Blink: CURSOR, EYELIDS, SMOKE DETECTOR, TURN SIGNAL.
Purple, ___ Alert: NERD, RED, SPOILER, WEATHER.
The purple group
Purple today is ___ Alert: NERD, RED, SPOILER, WEATHER. Purple is the group the setters build last, and it is usually a hidden word, a sound, or a phrase pattern rather than a plain category. If two of its words looked like they belonged somewhere else, that was the point.
Yesterday's Connections
Connections #1,188, September 11, 2026: People Hired For An Event (BAND, FLORIST, PHOTOGRAPHER, PLANNER); Internalize (ABSORB, DIGEST, PROCESS, TAKE IN); Ways To Practice Self-care (EXERCISE, JOURNAL, MEDITATE, UNPLUG); Things That Are Pushed Metaphorically (AGENDA, ENVELOPE, LIMITS, LUCK). Yesterday's page ›
Connections is four groups. This one is five words.
One real news sentence a day, twenty to thirty words, something that actually happened. Keep the five words a headline would keep and let the rest go. Here is yesterday's, solved.
At Camden Lock, a 71-year-oldwoman, Beatrice Millar, took off her shoes, jumped in after a drowningman and saved him by holding his head above water.
Five tries. blue is the right word in the right place, orange is one of the five sitting somewhere else, grey is not one of them. The result beats the process, a name or a job beats a place, and the little words never count.