The New York Times Connections
The New York Times Connections

Fans of The New York Times' popular word-grouping puzzle can find help here for Thursday's edition, with hints and the complete solution for Connections game number 1,145.

Connections challenges players to sort 16 seemingly unrelated words into four groups of four, with each group sharing a hidden connection. The puzzle, which debuted in beta in 2023 before becoming a permanent addition to the Times' games lineup, ranks the four categories by difficulty, typically presented in order from most straightforward to most challenging. Thursday's puzzle blended straightforward wordplay with trickier conceptual links, according to puzzle coverage from multiple outlets that track the daily game.

Players looking for guidance before jumping to the full answer can use the following category hints to narrow down their thinking. One group centers on words describing someone who is truthful and dependable, evoking qualities associated with honesty and moral uprightness. A second group involves activities and games that share a common physical element: multiple balls being used simultaneously, whether in casual party games, gambling-adjacent pastimes or coordination-based physical activities. A third group connects several well-known names, all of which happen to belong to major cruise line operators serving vacationers around the world. The fourth and typically most challenging group involves a common phrase structure, "on the ___," used to convey the idea of something being precise or exact.

For those ready for the complete solution, here are the four groups and their associated words for Thursday's puzzle.

The first category, built around words meaning virtuous or morally upright, includes FAIR, GOOD, JUST and RIGHT. Each of these words can independently describe someone or something as honest, principled or morally sound, making this grouping a relatively accessible entry point for many solvers.

The second category, focused on activities involving multiple balls, includes BEER PONG, BINGO, JUGGLING and POOL. While these activities differ significantly in setting and purpose, ranging from a casual drinking game to a numbers-based game of chance to a circus-style skill and a classic billiards game, they share the common thread of incorporating more than one ball as a central element of gameplay.

The third category groups together CARNIVAL, CELEBRITY, PRINCESS and VIKING, all well-known cruise line brands that operate large fleets of vessels offering vacation cruises to destinations around the world. This category proved to be one that rewarded solvers with familiarity with the cruise industry, since each word could plausibly fit into other categories without that specific context in mind.

The fourth and final category, generally the most difficult in each day's puzzle, centers on the phrase structure "on the ___," used to mean precise or exact, and includes DOT, MARK, MONEY and NOSE. Phrases such as "on the dot," "on the mark," "on the money" and "on the nose" are all common English idioms used to describe something that is exactly correct or perfectly timed, making this category a strong example of the kind of wordplay-driven, idiom-based grouping that tends to trip up even experienced Connections players.

Puzzle strategy guides commonly recommend that players begin by identifying the category they feel most confident about first, since locking in an easier group early can help clarify which words remain for the trickier, more conceptually layered categories. Puzzle commentators covering Thursday's edition specifically noted that the game's anagram-adjacent and lateral-thinking elements made some groupings less immediately obvious than others, encouraging players to look beyond a word's most literal or surface-level meaning when categories don't seem to click into place right away.

Connections has become one of several daily word games published by The New York Times, joining Wordle, Strands, the Mini Crossword and the newer Connections: Sports Edition, a themed spinoff that applies the same grouping format specifically to sports-related terminology and shorthand. All of the Times' daily puzzle offerings typically reset at midnight local time, giving players a fresh challenge to tackle each day.

Players hoping to protect an ongoing daily streak, a feature Connections uses to track consecutive days of successful puzzle completion, can access Thursday's puzzle, along with archived puzzles from previous days, directly through the New York Times Games platform. For those who prefer working through the puzzle with minimal outside help, the Times and various puzzle-focused outlets typically offer tiered levels of hints, ranging from broad category descriptions to more specific clues, before revealing the full solution for players who become completely stuck.

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