The New York Times Connections
The New York Times Connections

Tuesday's edition of The New York Times' popular word-grouping game served up a grid built around dance terminology, a beloved board game, online content sorting, and a purple category that turned a single, deceptively simple word into one of the puzzle's most challenging traps.

How the Game Works

Connections by The New York Times is a popular word game that fans can enjoy daily for free on the website. The puzzle presents a set of 16 words that appear random at first glance. But a closer look reveals the hidden connections among them. The objective is to figure out what these connections are and sort the words into groups of four. Players only get four guesses to make the choices, and the game provides a "one away..." hint whenever a player gets close to completing a particular group. The groups are color-coded based on their level of difficulty.

Tuesday's Four Categories

The themes and answers for the June 23, 2026, NYT Connections puzzle were as follows:

Yellow Group: Dance Styles — FOXTROT, MODERN, SWING, TAP.

Green Group: In a Monopoly Box — DEED, HOTEL, MONEY, TOKEN.

Blue Group: Content Sorting Options Online — FEATURED, POPULAR, RECENT, TRENDING.

Purple Group: Things With Mantles/Mantels — EARTH, EMPEROR, FIREPLACE, YANKEES.

Breaking Down the Categories

The yellow category offered a relatively accessible entry point for most solvers, gathering four recognizable styles of dance into FOXTROT, MODERN, SWING, and TAP. The green category required players to think specifically about items found inside the classic board game, bringing together DEED, HOTEL, MONEY, and TOKEN — all components instantly recognizable to anyone who has played Monopoly.

The blue category gathered terms describing how content gets organized and browsed across various online platforms, linking FEATURED, POPULAR, RECENT, and TRENDING. Several individual words throughout the grid were designed to mislead solvers into incorrect early groupings; MODERN, for instance, could plausibly have fit into multiple categories before solvers settled on its placement in the dance styles group.

The Purple Category's Wordplay Trap

As is typical for Connections puzzles, the purple category delivered the day's most challenging twist, built around the multiple meanings of a single word rather than a straightforward theme. The purple category, "Things With Mantles/Mantels," was tricky because "mantle" has multiple meanings, referring to a geological layer in EARTH, a metaphorical role in EMPEROR and YANKEES, and a physical shelf in FIREPLACE.

That range of definitions caught even experienced solvers off guard. Words like YANKEES and EMPEROR don't immediately scream "mantle" to most players, given that the word's most common usage as a fireplace shelf offers little hint toward its other, more figurative meanings tied to inherited roles or responsibilities — as in "taking up the mantle" of a position or title.

A Genuine Challenge Even for Regular Solvers

One puzzle outlet described the experience of working through Tuesday's grid as a genuine test, despite the more accessible nature of the earlier categories. "Man, today's puzzle, June 23rd, 2026, really threw me for a loop with that purple category; I almost didn't make it! Those 'MANTLE' words were so varied, and 'YANKEES' felt like a curveball that nearly ended my perfect streak," the outlet wrote. "The yellow and green categories offered a nice warm-up, but blue and especially purple demanded some serious lateral thinking."

Another solver described navigating the blue category with some early missteps before ultimately working through the full puzzle. "I had 'modern' thrown in twice before ruling it out while solving the blue group," the solver wrote, noting they made two mistakes overall while solving the blue group, with their final solving order running blue, green, yellow, purple.

Tips for Future Puzzles

Connections strategists continue to recommend identifying the most clearly defined categories first, particularly straightforward groupings like dance styles or board game components, before tackling categories that require more abstract or associative thinking. Puzzle editor Wyna Liu is known for designing the purple category specifically around wordplay and misdirection, meaning solvers encountering a word that seems too easy to categorize should treat that ease itself as a potential warning sign of a deeper, more clever connection waiting to be uncovered.

The Game's Continued Popularity

Connections is a surprisingly difficult word game created by the New York Times staff, and if you play, you're now considered a "connector." Since its June 2023 launch, the game has become one of the Times's most consistently popular offerings, trailing only Wordle in overall daily engagement among the publication's expanding portfolio of puzzle games.

Where to Find More Puzzle Help

Beyond Connections, the New York Times Games collection includes several companion puzzles released on the same daily schedule, including Wordle, Strands, Pips, the NYT Crosswords, Sudoku, and a dedicated Connections Sports Edition that applies the same grouping format to athletic trivia. Tuesday's slate also included Strands puzzle number 842, giving puzzle enthusiasts a full menu of additional daily challenges beyond the standard Connections grid.

With Tuesday's puzzle now solved by players who successfully navigated the multiple meanings hidden within the purple "mantle" category, attention turns to Wednesday's edition, puzzle number 1109, when a fresh sixteen-word grid and an entirely new set of hidden categories will once again test the Connections community's ability to spot wordplay and misdirection before their four guesses run out.

Read more