The New York Times Connections
The New York Times Connections

NEW YORK — Sunday's Connections puzzle pairs a group of record-setting words with a wedding-planning category and a set of math and aviation terms. The trickiest group is hidden in the spelling, with vegetables tucked at the ends of several words.

Puzzle No. 1,253 for Nov. 15, 2026, asks players to sort 16 words into four groups of four. Players get four mistakes before the game ends.

Today's 16 Words

The grid contains: JET, SLEEK, REGISTRY, HISTORIC, CARTESIAN, RSVP, OCTONION, ALL-TIME, TRAVEL, INCLINED, RECORD, ARCHIVE, DRESS CODE, ASTRAL, UNPRECEDENTED and RAPSCALLION.

Several words could fit more than one group. RECORD and JET in particular each have more than one meaning, so solvers should check that all four words in a group fit before they submit.

Hints for Each Group

Yellow: Ways to describe something that has never been matched. Green: Things you'd click on a couple's wedding planning site. Blue: Each word can come before a common type of aircraft. Geometry fans also have an advantage here. Purple: Look at the last letters of each word. Think of the onion family.

Strategy Tips

The yellow group is usually the easiest place to start. On Sunday, several words point to superlatives and milestones, but players should be careful with RECORD. It could also seem to fit a group about documents or storage alongside ARCHIVE and REGISTRY.

The wedding group is fairly clear once players spot RSVP and DRESS CODE. REGISTRY is the obvious third member. The fourth is less obvious because it seems to belong with JET as a travel word.

The blue group takes some outside knowledge. A Cartesian plane is the familiar x-y grid from math class. An inclined plane is one of the classic simple machines from physics. An astral plane comes from mysticism and philosophy, and "jet plane" is the everyday aircraft.

The purple group, as usual, relies on wordplay rather than meaning. Players who look at word endings will find a set of related vegetables.

Spoiler Warning

The full answers are below.

Today's Connections Answers

Yellow, Unmatched: ALL-TIME, HISTORIC, RECORD, UNPRECEDENTED

Green, Wedding Website Sections: DRESS CODE, REGISTRY, RSVP, TRAVEL

Blue, ___ Plane: ASTRAL, CARTESIAN, INCLINED, JET

Purple, Ending in Vegetables in the Allium Family: ARCHIVE, OCTONION, RAPSCALLION, SLEEK

Breaking Down the Purple Group

Each word in the hardest group ends with a member of the allium family, the plant group that includes onions, garlic and their relatives:

ARCHIVE ends in CHIVE. OCTONION ends in ONION. An octonion is an advanced mathematical number system. RAPSCALLION ends in SCALLION. SLEEK ends in LEEK.

OCTONION may be the hardest word in the grid for most players. It's an obscure term from higher mathematics, and some players may wrongly try to put it with CARTESIAN in a math group.

Where Players Could Go Wrong

The puzzle has several red herrings:

TRAVEL and JET both suggest air travel. Players may try to group them with ASTRAL or INCLINED before they see the "plane" link. ARCHIVE, REGISTRY and RECORD all suggest records or storage, which could cost players a mistake early on. CARTESIAN and OCTONION are both math terms. That could push players toward a mathematics group that doesn't exist.

Solvers who start with the wedding group or the "plane" group may find the rest of the puzzle falls into place more easily.

How Connections Works

The New York Times launched Connections in 2023, and it quickly became one of its most popular games after Wordle. Each puzzle has 16 words and four hidden groups. The groups are color-coded by difficulty:

yellow (easiest) green blue purple (hardest)

Every puzzle has only one correct solution. Each correct group locks in place, and the remaining words regroup on the board. After four wrong guesses the game ends and the answers are revealed.

A new Connections puzzle comes out at midnight local time each day.

Tips for Future Puzzles

Regular players say three habits help most:

Look past a word's obvious meaning. Watch for hidden words inside longer ones. Hold back on an "obvious" group until you're sure the fifth possible word doesn't belong.

The purple group often depends on spelling, sound or hidden words rather than meaning. On days like Sunday, it's worth checking the start and end of each word.