Sunday’s NYT Connections puzzle, game #1246, serves up a tricky mix of beauty parlor terminology, gym slang, abstract nouns and a purple category built on sound-alike vegetables. The puzzle is rated hard, and for good reason: several words pull double duty, and the final grouping depends on spotting homophones rather than meanings. If you are stuck, the NYT Connections #1246 hints and answers below walk through each category without spoiling the fun too early.
Today's words
The sixteen tiles are: CUT, LEAK, CONTEXT, CARAT, BUILT, BLOWOUT, CLARITY, CHARRED, COLOR, KORN, INSIGHT, EXTENSIONS, RIPPED, TRIM, JACKED and PERSPECTIVE.
Group hints
- Yellow: Treatments you might book at a salon.
- Green: Words for a physique with visible muscle.
- Blue: What a good explanation provides.
- Purple: These words sound like vegetables.
Category answers
Yellow — Hair salon services
BLOWOUT, COLOR, EXTENSIONS and TRIM. The overlap with CUT is the main trap here, since a cut is also a salon service, but CUT belongs elsewhere.
Green — Muscular
BUILT, CUT, JACKED and RIPPED. All four describe a visibly fit or muscular body.
Blue — Things that help make sense of a situation
CLARITY, CONTEXT, INSIGHT and PERSPECTIVE. These abstract nouns all point to understanding.
Purple — Vegetable homophones
CARAT, CHARRED, KORN and LEAK. Each sounds like a vegetable: carrot, chard, corn and leek.
What makes this puzzle hard
The yellow group is not as straightforward as it first appears. COLOR and EXTENSIONS are clear salon words, but BLOWOUT and TRIM compete with CUT, which is a more obvious salon term. Solvers who lock in CUT early may need to backtrack. The purple group is even more deceptive: KORN is a well-known band name, so it can feel like a music connection is hiding in the grid. The homophone angle only becomes clear once the other categories are resolved.
As with all Connections puzzles, the color order runs from yellow (easiest) to purple (hardest), though individual solvers often find the blue group more approachable than the yellow one. Up to four mistakes are allowed, which gives some room to experiment.
Yesterday's answers
Saturday’s game #1245 used these categories: Pirate’s plunder (BOOTY, BOUNTY, SPOILS, TREASURE); kinds of shirts (HENLEY, POLO, RAGLAN, RINGER); first words of U.S. state names (NEW, NORTH, RHODE, SOUTH); and ends of storm types (CANE, CLONE, EASTER, SOON).
About the game
Connections is a free daily word game from the New York Times, playable on desktop or mobile through the NYT Games site. Each puzzle presents sixteen words that must be sorted into four groups of four, with each group sharing a hidden connection. The difficulty tiers are yellow, green, blue and purple, and the purple group often relies on wordplay such as homophones.
