NYT Connections #1164 answer & hints: Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Updated: Tuesday, August 18, 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 #1164 of Tuesday, August 18, 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.

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.

Connections hints (August 18, 2026)

1One word from each group

Yellow (easiest): one of its words is “LIMOUSINE”.
Green (easy): one of its words is “PETROLEUM JELLY”.
Blue (tricky): one of its words is “BASKETBALL”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): one of its words is “COWBOY COFFEE”.

2Category hints (no answers)

Yellow (easiest): the theme is “Seen at a movie premiere”.
Green (easy): the theme is “Pjs”.
Blue (tricky): the theme is “Things that are orange”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): the theme is “Things that are gritty”.

3One full group revealed

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Seen at a movie premiere”, and its four words are: LIMOUSINE, PAPARAZZI, RED CARPET, VELVET ROPE.

Connections answers — August 18, 2026 (#1164)

★Today's full Connections answers, explained

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Seen at a movie premiere”. The words: LIMOUSINE, PAPARAZZI, RED CARPET, VELVET ROPE.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Pjs”. The words: PETROLEUM JELLY, POETIC JUSTICE, PRACTICAL JOKE, PRIVATE JET.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Things that are orange”. The words: BASKETBALL, ORANGUTAN, SWEET POTATO, TRAFFIC CONE.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “Things that are gritty”. The words: COWBOY COFFEE, FILM NOIR, FLYERS MASCOT, SANDPAPER.

The puzzle, explained

The purple group nailed you with a wordplay trap—"GRITTY" works literally for sandpaper, but the real genius is that each answer contains or sounds like "GRIT": cowboy coffee has grit in the grounds, film noir has that gritty aesthetic, the Flyers mascot is Gritty, and sandpaper is literally made of grit. The blue group was the sneaky bait because BASKETBALL and TRAFFIC CONE are genuinely orange objects, which made you second-guess whether you should be looking for literal colors or hidden words. ORANGUTAN had the same misdirect—it's orange AND sounds like it might hide something else. Once you realized the purple group was all about the word "grit" hiding in plain sight, the whole puzzle clicked into place.

Next in today's routine: Wordle → · every game's answers on one page. New puzzle daily at midnight US Eastern Time (5am UK). Bookmark this page for tomorrow's hints. Or play Connections on the official site.

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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) →