NYT Connections Hints, Answers & Clues - Sun, July 26, 2026

CRAWLING, FIRST WORDS, ROLLING OVER, and SOLID FOOD are all classic developmental milestones that parents track in a baby's first year — each marks a distinct stage of physical or cognitive growth.

CRAWLING

Moving on hands and knees — typically the stage between rolling and walking, usually around seven to ten months.

FIRST WORDS

The moment a baby produces a recognisable word like 'mama' or 'dada' — usually around twelve months and a major developmental marker.

ROLLING OVER

The early milestone when an infant first flips themselves from back to front or front to back — usually around four to six months.

SOLID FOOD

The transition from milk-only feeding to purées and soft foods — typically introduced around six months and a milestone in infant nutrition.

BLACKBERRY, DISCMAN, DVD PLAYER, and PLASMA TV are all consumer technology products that were once mainstream and desirable but have since been rendered obsolete by newer technology.

BLACKBERRY

The smartphone brand — once the dominant business phone thanks to its physical keyboard and secure email, overtaken by touchscreen smartphones in the late 2000s.

DISCMAN

Sony's portable CD player, launched in 1984 — the high-tech successor to the Walkman, now a nostalgic relic of the pre-streaming era.

DVD PLAYER

The device for playing DVD discs — standard in most homes in the 2000s, now largely replaced by streaming services.

PLASMA TV

A flat-screen television technology using plasma gas cells to produce images — popular in the early 2000s but phased out by more efficient LCD and OLED screens.

APRIL SHOWERS, LIQUID SUNSHINE, SCOTCH MIST, and WET WEATHER are all expressions used to describe rain — ranging from the poetic to the euphemistic to the bluntly literal.

APRIL SHOWERS

From the proverb 'April showers bring May flowers' — used as a poetic or resigned way to refer to spring rainfall.

LIQUID SUNSHINE

A cheerful euphemism for rain, particularly common in regions where rain is frequent enough to need a positive spin.

SCOTCH MIST

A British expression for fine, persistent drizzle — the kind of rain so light it barely registers but still soaks you through.

WET WEATHER

The most direct expression in the group — a plain, unadorned way of saying it is raining, used in forecasts and everyday speech.

CARAPACE, GAS STATION, PASTRY CRUST, and ROWING BOAT are all things the word SHELL can refer to — the hard covering of a creature, the petrol brand, the outer casing of a pie, and the lightweight racing boat.

CARAPACE

A carapace is the hard outer shell of a tortoise, crab, or similar animal — shell is the everyday word for exactly this structure.

GAS STATION

Shell is one of the world's largest petrol brands, so a Shell gas station is a filling station operated under that name — the brand logo is a scallop shell.

PASTRY CRUST

In baking, a pastry shell is the outer crust of a pie or tart — the hollow case made of pastry before the filling goes in.

ROWING BOAT

In competitive rowing, a shell is the long, narrow, lightweight racing boat — the term is standard in the sport, particularly in North American usage.