NYT Connections Hints Today: Saturday, September 26, 2026 (#1203)

Updated: Saturday, September 26, 2026 · Hints reviewed by Omer Liban · New puzzle daily at midnight US Eastern Time (5am UK). · Puzzle editor: Wyna Liu.

This page has every level of help for the NYT Connections puzzle #1203 of Saturday, September 26, 2026: 3 spoiler-free hint tiers that narrow things down step by step, followed by the complete answers with explanations — each behind its own tap-to-reveal card.

In a hurry? Jump straight to today's answers ↓ · Answers-only page →

Stuck on today's Connections? Work through the hint tiers below — each one gives away a little more, so you can get exactly as much help as you want and still keep the win.

New to Connections? The four answer groups are colour-coded by difficulty: 🟡 yellow is the easiest, then 🟢 green, 🔵 blue, and 🟣 purple — the trickiest, usually built on wordplay. The hints below use those colours.

Today's Connections hints (September 26, 2026)

1One word from each group

Yellow (easiest): one of its words is “GUM”.
Green (easy): one of its words is “FOLD”.
Blue (tricky): one of its words is “BURL”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): one of its words is “BEANS”.

2Category hints (no answers)

Yellow (easiest): the theme is “Breath fresheners”.
Green (easy): the theme is “Things done to a dress shirt at the laundry”.
Blue (tricky): the theme is “Features of wood”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): the theme is “"cool" things, in expressions”.

3One full group revealed

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Breath fresheners”, and its four words are: GUM, MINT, MOUTHWASH, SPRAY.

Connections answers — September 26, 2026 (#1203)

★Today's full Connections answers, explained

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Breath fresheners”. The words: GUM, MINT, MOUTHWASH, SPRAY.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Things done to a dress shirt at the laundry”. The words: FOLD, PRESS, STARCH, WASH.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Features of wood”. The words: BURL, GRAIN, KNOTS, RINGS.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “"cool" things, in expressions”. The words: BEANS, CAT, CUCUMBER, CUSTOMER.

Today's puzzle, explained

Today's puzzle had a genuinely clever purple group that worked through "cool" expressions: spilling the beans, cool as a cucumber, cool cat, and cool customer all use these words to mean calm or composed. The real trick was that BEANS, CUCUMBER, and CUSTOMER were all sitting in other potential categories in your head—especially BEANS and CUCUMBER, which could feel like they belong with food or plants. RINGS and KNOTS from the wood features category were probably the most tempting misdirects for the blue group since they're such natural wood characteristics that it's easy to overlook that BURL and GRAIN fit just as well. Once you locked in that the green laundry group was about specific things done to dress shirts (PRESS, STARCH, FOLD, WASH), the puzzle opened up pretty quickly.

Yesterday's Connections answers

★ Yesterday's answers (Sep 25, #1202)

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Luxe”. The words: BOUGIE, FANCY, POSH, SWANK.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Parts of a mechanical clock”. The words: ESCAPEMENT, PENDULUM, RATCHET, SPRING.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Famous dans”. The words: AYKROYD, LEVY, RATHER, SAVAGE.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “Taxonomic ranks plus a letter”. The words: BORDER, CLASSY, FOAMILY, GENIUS.

Missed it? Yesterday's Connections hints & answers (Sep 25, #1202) →

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Connections — common questions

What time does NYT Connections reset?

A new Connections puzzle is released daily at midnight US Eastern Time — that's 5am in the UK (4am during US daylight-saving transitions) and 12:00am for US East Coast players.

What do the Connections colours mean?

Yellow is the easiest group, then green, then blue, and purple is the trickiest — purple usually involves wordplay such as homophones, hidden words or 'words before/after X'.

How many mistakes are allowed in Connections?

You can make four mistakes before the puzzle ends. If you see 'one away…', exactly three of your four selected words belong together.

Previous Connections puzzles

Full Connections archive (137 puzzles) → · How to play Connections (and win more) →