The New York Times Connections
The New York Times Connections

NEW YORK — Wednesday's New York Times Connections puzzle, numbered 1,200, asked players to sort 16 words into four groups of four. Recap sites published matching solutions after the grid went live for Sept. 23, 2026.

The tiles were: PAINT, CAPTCHA, BITCOIN, WALLET, SPAM, PHONE, RECORD LABEL, AGE VERIFICATION, SURINAME, PAYWALL, CONDENSED MILK, RUB-A-DUB, KEYS, SHAVING CREAM, COOKIE CONSENT and SUNGLASSES.

Connections, created by Wyna Liu and published by The New York Times Games, gives players four mistakes. Yellow is designed as the most straightforward category, then green, blue and purple. A wrong foursome costs a life. The game does not require a Times subscription on the Games site, though accounts save streaks.

Spoiler warning: category names and full answers follow. Hints first.

Yellow hint used by recap desks: don't forget these, or items people take when they walk out the door. One revealed yellow word in Forbes' walkthrough was PHONE.

Green hint: not so fast — gates that stop a browser. One green word offered as a peek was PAYWALL.

Blue hint: a type of packaging. One blue word flagged was PAINT.

Purple hint: hidden words at the ends that share a meaning. One purple peek was SURINAME.

Category titles, from easiest to hardest as labeled by the color system:

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 set is a wordplay group, not a theme about money or geography. BITCOIN ends in "coin." RECORD LABEL ends in "label." RUB-A-DUB ends in "dub." SURINAME ends in "name." Coin, label, dub and name can all stand in for "term" in different senses — a coin as slang for money or a term of value, a record label as a brand term, dub as a name or nickname, and name as a term for something. Recap writers treated that as the intended link.

Red herrings are built in. WALLET sits next to BITCOIN and PHONE. SPAM is both a canned meat and junk email, which can pull toward the website group. COOKIE CONSENT and CAPTCHA feel like they could sit with PHONE as digital life. PAINT could wander toward house-leaving if someone thinks of covering a wall before going out. SURINAME looks like a lone country. RECORD LABEL looks like music industry, not a suffix puzzle.

Lifehacker writer Tim Mulkerin noted that CAPTCHA, COOKIE CONSENT, AGE VERIFICATION and PAYWALL read first as security or privacy measures. Forbes' Kris Holt wrote that the greens landed immediately and called cookie-consent banners "exceedingly irritating." Those are columnist remarks, not Times staff comments.

Puzzle No. 1,200 is a round-number marker in a daily series that began in June 2023. The format has stayed stable: 16 words, four groups, four lives, no hints inside the official board. Third-party sites publish color-coded hints each morning because the official game does not.

A separate Connections: Sports Edition ran the same day as puzzle No. 730. That grid is not the main Connections board. Its groups, according to Mashable, were teams and schools in Massachusetts (BRUINS, CELTICS, HARVARD, UMASS); Raiders quarterbacks (CARR, COUSINS, GANNON, STABLER); women's golf major winners (INKSTER, KO, KORDA, PARK); and last words in football movie titles (BLUES, LIGHTS, TITANS, YARD). Mixing the two boards is a common source of wrong answers in comment threads.

How to play if you have not opened the grid: tap four words that share a category and submit. Yellow, green, blue or purple flashes if you are right. After two mistakes, many players isolate the odd tiles. Purple often hides a last-syllable or homophone trick; Wednesday's "term" endings fit that pattern.

The official board remains on the New York Times Games site. Recaps from CNET, Lifehacker, Forbes, Parade and Try Hard Guides agreed on all 16 placements. If your grid differs, check the date stamp. Connections rotates by local publication day.

Wednesday's solve path that recap writers described was green first, yellow second, blue third and purple last. Website language is current and distinctive. Pocket items are familiar. Cans are concrete. The suffix group is the one that burns the fourth mistake when BITCOIN stays glued to WALLET.

Answers again, without the hint ladder: keys, phone, sunglasses, wallet; age verification, captcha, cookie consent, paywall; condensed milk, paint, shaving cream, Spam; Bitcoin, record label, rub-a-dub, Suriname. That is Connections No. 1,200 for Sept. 23, 2026.

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