NYT Connections Hints & Answers (#1198) – Today's Puzzle, September 21
Today’s NYT Connections Tip
Every word here moonlights as something completely unrelated to its obvious job.
Connections Hint for Each Word Today
Tap any word to see its Connections hint — what it means in today’s puzzle, no spoilers.
COMPOSE
COMPOSE Connections Hint
The button you press to start a new email — not the musical sense of writing a symphony.
CHECK
CHECK Connections Hint
A chess move that puts the opponent's king under direct attack — not verifying, not a bank cheque.
FLY
FLY Connections Hint
An artificial fly used as fishing bait — not the verb meaning to travel by air.
BEET
BEET Connections Hint
The first four letters of BEETHOVEN — the vegetable is the decoy.
The button you press to start a new email — not the musical sense of writing a symphony.
BRAH
BRAH Connections Hint
The first four letters of BRAHMS — sounds like casual slang for brother, but that is the trap.
WORM
WORM Connections Hint
A live worm threaded onto a hook to attract fish — not a computer virus or the verb meaning to wriggle.
SPAM
SPAM Connections Hint
The email folder that catches junk and unwanted messages — not the canned meat.
MATE
MATE Connections Hint
Checkmate — the chess move that ends the game by trapping the king with no escape.
CASTLE
CASTLE Connections Hint
To castle in chess means to move the king two squares toward a rook and swap their positions — a specific defensive manoeuvre, not a building.
CHUM
CHUM Connections Hint
Chopped fish or blood scattered in water to attract fish — not a word for a close friend here.
VIVA
VIVA Connections Hint
The first four letters of VIVALDI — sounds like a cheer or a car brand, but it is a composer fragment.
SENT
SENT Connections Hint
The email folder that stores messages you have already sent — straightforward once you see the category.
CHOP
CHOP Connections Hint
The first four letters of CHOPIN — not the cooking action or a karate move.
CAPTURE
CAPTURE Connections Hint
To take an opponent's piece off the board in chess — not catching a criminal or photographing a moment.
DRAFTS
DRAFTS Connections Hint
The email folder where unfinished messages are saved before sending — not multiple versions of a document.
SPINNER
SPINNER Connections Hint
A spinning lure that rotates through water to mimic a small fish and attract predators — not a DJ or a fidget toy.
Today’s NYT Connections Hints for All Four Categories
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Yellow Connections Hint Today
Labels on folders in your inbox sidebar. Think: inbox navigation, unsent messages
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Green Connections Hint Today
Things you use to lure fish toward your hook. Think: tackle box, bait types
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Blue Connections Hint Today
Actions a player performs during a chess game. Think: board moves, king in danger
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Purple Connections Hint Today
Opening syllables of famous classical composers' surnames. Think: truncated last names, concert hall
Traps & Misdirects Hints for Today’s Connections Puzzle
Today’s Connections puzzle includes words intentionally placed to misdirect you into wrong groups. These traps and misdirects hints reveal which words are designed to mislead, so you don’t burn your 4 allowed mistakes on deliberate decoys.
COMPOSE means to write music, CHOP is what a chef does, and CHECK is what you do before sending an email — all three feel like general action verbs that could anchor a category together. That surface similarity is a dead end. Each of these three belongs to a completely different group, and none of them is being used in its most obvious sense here.
CHUM means pal, MATE is British slang for friend, and BRAH is a casual term for buddy — clustering them as words for a close friend feels almost too easy. That reading is wrong for all three. Each of these words is doing something entirely different in this puzzle, and the friendship angle is the bait.
CASTLE is a building, CAPTURE means to catch something, and CHECK means to verify — none of those meanings are in play here, but they pull in different directions and make it hard to see what these words actually share. If you play chess, this group may click; if you do not, these three words will scatter across several wrong guesses.
SPINNER sounds like a DJ technique, FLY is what you do on a plane, and WORM is a computer virus — all three have strong non-fishing meanings that feel plausible in a puzzle context. None of those readings apply here. These three are united by something much more specific and hands-on.
Today’s NYT Connections Answers
Today’s NYT Connections Answers Explained
EMAIL BUTTONS
COMPOSE, DRAFTS, SENT, and SPAM are all labels you see in the sidebar of an email client — each one names a folder or action button that organises your inbox.
- COMPOSE
- The button you click to start writing a new email from scratch — the puzzle leans on the musical meaning as a decoy.
- DRAFTS
- The folder where emails you have started but not yet sent are automatically saved — unfinished messages live here.
- SENT
- The folder that stores a copy of every email you have successfully sent — a simple past tense word doing a very specific job.
- SPAM
- The folder that catches unwanted junk mail filtered out of your main inbox — named after the canned meat that became slang for bulk unsolicited messages.
WAYS TO ATTRACT FISH
CHUM, FLY, SPINNER, and WORM are all things anglers use to attract or catch fish — each is a specific type of bait or lure with its own technique.
- CHUM
- Chopped fish scraps, blood, or offal scattered into the water to draw fish toward the fishing spot — the word for a friend is the trap.
- FLY
- An artificial fly tied from feathers and thread to mimic an insect on the water's surface — fly fishing is a whole discipline built around this lure.
- SPINNER
- A metal lure with a blade that spins as it moves through water, catching light and mimicking a small fish to attract predators.
- WORM
- A live earthworm or artificial worm threaded onto a hook — one of the oldest and most effective fishing baits.
CHESS VERBS
CAPTURE, CASTLE, CHECK, and MATE are all verbs describing specific actions or states in a chess game — each one has a precise technical meaning on the board.
- CAPTURE
- To take an opponent's piece by moving your own piece onto its square and removing it from the board.
- CASTLE
- A special move where the king slides two squares toward a rook and the rook jumps to the other side of the king — used for defensive positioning.
- CHECK
- To put the opponent's king under direct attack so that they must respond immediately — the king is in check and cannot be left in danger.
- MATE
- Short for checkmate — the move that ends the game by placing the king in check with no legal escape, meaning the attacking player wins.
STARTS OF COMPOSERS' NAMES
BEET, BRAH, CHOP, and VIVA are the opening four letters of the surnames of four famous classical composers — BEETHOVEN, BRAHMS, CHOPIN, and VIVALDI.
- BEET
- The first four letters of BEETHOVEN — Ludwig van Beethoven, the German composer famous for his symphonies and piano sonatas, including the Fifth Symphony.
- BRAH
- The first four letters of BRAHMS — Johannes Brahms, the German Romantic composer known for his four symphonies and his lullaby.
- CHOP
- The first four letters of CHOPIN — Frédéric Chopin, the Polish composer celebrated for his piano nocturnes, études, and waltzes.
- VIVA
- The first four letters of VIVALDI — Antonio Vivaldi, the Italian Baroque composer best known for The Four Seasons.
What Makes Today’s NYT Connections Puzzle Tricky?
Words like COMPOSE, CHECK, CASTLE, and CHUM land in completely different mental registers — software interface, a bank, a board game, a buddy — and BEET, BRAH, VIVA, and CHOP sit alongside them without any obvious shared territory.
The editor's trick is that almost every word has a strong, familiar meaning that is completely wrong for this puzzle — the obvious reading is the decoy, and the correct reading requires knowing a secondary or domain-specific sense.
This one is genuinely hard — one group may click quickly if you fish or play chess, but the fourth group requires recognising fragments of proper names, which is the kind of lateral thinking that trips up even experienced solvers.
How to Use Connections Hints
Everyone playing NYT Connections puzzle gets stuck at a different point. Some players can’t figure out a single word. Others have three groups solved and can’t find the fourth. Where you are stuck determines which connection hint you need. So if you are stuck in today’s puzzle, find your situation in the sections below, use the recommended Connections hint, and continue solving. You don’t need to reveal more than what gets you past the point where you are stuck.
A word in the puzzle has an unfamiliar meaning
Some words in today’s NYT Connections puzzle are uncommon. Connections editor Wyna Liu often uses words with specific or less familiar meanings, particularly in the green, blue, and purple categories. If you don’t know what a word means, you cannot reliably place it in a group.
Use the Word Hint. It tells you what the word means in the context of today’s puzzle. Tap any word directly on the board above to see its hint. Each word opens a small card with its puzzle-specific connections hint.
No groups are forming after reading all sixteen words
The connection between words is often not obvious from their meanings alone — categories are built around themes that require a specific angle to see. These category-level clues are the most useful hints for connections that aren’t coming together from word meanings alone.
Use the Category Hint. It points you toward the theme of a category without revealing the category name or which words belong to it. In the All Hints section, tap “Yellow Category Hint” first. Read it before revealing anything else. Yellow is the easiest category by design.
You have a possible group but aren’t ready to guess
You think four words belong together but you’re not confident enough to guess. If you’re unsure, don’t guess yet — a wrong guess costs you one of your four mistakes.
Use the Category Name. It reveals the exact name of the category without showing you which words belong to it. If your group belongs to that category, guess with confidence. If it doesn’t, you’ve saved a mistake. In the All Hints section, tap “Yellow Category Name” — or whichever colour you are testing. The name appears immediately below the hint.
One word seems to fit more than one group
You have built a group of four words but one word in it could also fit somewhere else. NYT Connections editor Wyna Liu deliberately places misleading words on the board that seem to fit multiple categories. These are the most common source of wrong guesses in today’s connections puzzle.
Use the Traps and Misdirects Hints. It identifies the specific misleading words in today’s puzzle and explains why they don’t belong where you think they do. Go to the Traps and Misdirects section and look for the word that is bothering you.
You know the category but can’t find all four words
You have identified the theme of a category but can’t find all four words that belong to it.
Use the Word Reveal. It uncovers one masked word at a time without revealing the full group. This is the most precise connection hint available — it gives you exactly one word without touching the rest of the puzzle. In the All Hints section, find the colour category you have identified. Tap “Category Words” to open the reveal panel, then tap “Reveal word 1” — one word at a time until your group is complete.
One mistake left with two groups unsolved
You have one mistake remaining and two groups unsolved. If you guess wrong here, the game ends and NYT reveals all the answers automatically.
Do not guess yet. Use the Category Name for both remaining groups first. If the category names still don’t resolve it, use the Word Reveal to uncover one or two words causing the split. In the All Hints section, tap the Category Name for both remaining colours. If that is still not enough, tap “Category Words” and reveal one word at a time until the correct split is clear.
You want today’s answers without solving the puzzle
Use the Answers section. It shows all four category names and the four words that belong to each one. Go to the Answers section.
The puzzle is over but a category still doesn’t make sense
You can see the four groups and their words but the connection between them isn’t clear.
Use the Answer Explanation. It tells you exactly what connects the words in each category and why each individual word belongs there. This is particularly useful for the purple category, where the connection is almost never straightforward. Go to the Answer Explanation section.
