By Akash Wadhwani. Checked against two sources, updated 7:11 AM 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, Things You Grab Before Leaving The House: KEYS, PHONE, SUNGLASSES, WALLET.
Green, Website Hurdles: AGE VERIFICATION, CAPTCHA, COOKIE CONSENT, PAYWALL.
Blue, Things That Come In Cans: CONDENSED MILK, PAINT, SHAVING CREAM, SPAM.
Purple, Ending In Synonyms For "term": BITCOIN, RECORD LABEL, RUB-A-DUB, SURINAME.
The purple group
Purple today is Ending In Synonyms For "term": BITCOIN, RECORD LABEL, RUB-A-DUB, SURINAME. 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 #1,199, September 22, 2026: Demonstratives (THAT, THESE, THIS, THOSE); Embellishment (ACCENT, DETAIL, FLOURISH, TOUCH); Options On A Multiple Choice Survey (AGREE, DISAGREE, NEUTRAL, OTHER); Beverages With Acute Accents Removed (CAFE, PATRON, ROSE, THE). 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.