The New York Times Connections
The New York Times Connections

Tuesday's NYT Connections puzzle is testing players with a batch of tricky overlaps between fruit, footwear and words hiding smaller words inside them, according to puzzle guides tracking today's grid. Here's a breakdown of the hints, categories and full solution for puzzle number 1,143.

How Connections Works

Connections is a web-based daily puzzle created by The New York Times in 2023, with the daily puzzles written by the paper's crossword editor, Wyna Liu. The game presents players with an interactive grid of 16 words, and the objective is to correctly link four words under a shared idea, forming four separate groups in total.

Players select four words at a time and press submit to check their guess, with the option to unselect words by clicking on them again, and a shuffle button available to help spot new patterns by rearranging the grid. Players are allowed up to four mistakes before the puzzle ends, and the four color-coded groups generally progress in difficulty, from simple, broad ideas to more specific terminology and wordplay.

Today's 16 Words

The 16 words in Tuesday's puzzle, listed alphabetically so as not to give away the groupings, are: Annapolis, Bobsled, Camper, Captain, Clarks, Converse, Crocs, Direct, Empire, Everest, Fuji, Gala, Head, Honeycrisp, Lead and Ottoman.

Hints for Each Category

For players hoping to solve the puzzle with a nudge rather than the full answer, several outlets published category-level hints Tuesday. The four categories for today's puzzle were described as centering on making people follow, popular fruit varieties, footwear that shares a starting letter, and words containing smaller, self-contained names.

More detailed clues pointed toward specific groupings. One hint indicated that one of the groups is built around words starting with palindromic names, while another confirmed that Captain and Direct belong in the same category. A separate hint noted that one full group could be described with the phrase "How do you like them apples," signaling a fruit-variety theme.

Puzzle solvers were also warned about several red herrings built into Tuesday's grid. At first glance, words like Captain and Lead can look like they belong in a sports-related category, while Empire and Fuji could easily be mistaken for place names, and committing to those assumptions early was likely to cost players valuable guesses.

Solving Strategy

One columnist who worked through the puzzle described a particularly tricky opening stretch built around the apple-themed group. The writer noted recognizing Honeycrisp and Gala as apple varieties, but struggled to identify the remaining pair, initially making a mistake by selecting Captain instead of Fuji before working out the correct grouping. After getting through that difficult opening group, the remaining three categories came together more easily, including a set of shoe brands starting with the letter C, appearing just ahead of a category built around the word Command.

The Full Solution

For players ready to see the complete answer key, here is how Tuesday's puzzle breaks down by category, from easiest to most difficult.

The yellow group, generally the most straightforward, centers on popular apple varieties: Empire, Fuji, Gala and Honeycrisp.

The green group focuses on words that mean to lead or take charge of a group: Captain, Direct, Head and Lead.

The blue group gathers well-known footwear brands that all begin with the letter C: Camper, Clarks, Converse and Crocs.

The purple group, typically the trickiest of the four, links words that each begin with a smaller, self-contained palindromic name hidden inside them: Annapolis, Bobsled, Everest and Ottoman.

Monday's Puzzle, for Reference

Players looking to keep track of recent puzzles or extend a winning streak can also reference the previous day's grid. The NYT Connections answer for Puzzle #1,142, played Monday, July 27, 2026, grouped words under the categories gymnastics apparatus, long tapered things, kinds of shifts, and icons on a shopping site.

Tips for Future Puzzles

Longtime Connections players often recommend a few core strategies to avoid burning through mistakes too quickly. Watching for trap words is essential, since most puzzles intentionally plant at least one word that appears to fit two different categories at first glance. If a particular theme seems to have five or six plausible candidates rather than exactly four, that is typically a signal that the category is a trap, with the extra words actually belonging to a separate, less obvious group.

Players are also encouraged to avoid locking in a group until they have mentally sorted all 16 words across the board, since the final four remaining words often reveal that an earlier "easy" guess was actually incorrect. Saving the riskiest guesses for last, once more of the board has been sorted with greater confidence, tends to preserve mistakes for the trickier purple and blue categories rather than the more obvious yellow and green groups.

More NYT Puzzles to Try

For players looking to round out their daily puzzle routine, The New York Times' broader games lineup included several other titles published the same day. Tuesday's slate also featured Wordle puzzle number 1,865 and NYT Strands puzzle number 877, both offering additional word-based challenges for readers working through their daily puzzle rotation.

With Tuesday's Connections puzzle now solved, players can look ahead to Wednesday's fresh grid, when a new set of 16 words and four categories will once again test vocabulary, pattern recognition and a willingness to second-guess the obvious answer.

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