NYT Connections #1167 answer & hints: Friday, August 21, 2026

Updated: Friday, August 21, 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 #1167 of Friday, August 21, 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 21, 2026)

1One word from each group

Yellow (easiest): one of its words is “NUTRITION”.
Green (easy): one of its words is “ACTION”.
Blue (tricky): one of its words is “COMEBACK”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): one of its words is “BLUE MOON”.

2Category hints (no answers)

Yellow (easiest): the theme is “Things most animals need”.
Green (easy): the theme is “Calls to begin a performance”.
Blue (tricky): the theme is “___ kids”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): the theme is “Once in a ___”.

3One full group revealed

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Things most animals need”, and its four words are: NUTRITION, OXYGEN, SLEEP, WATER.

Connections answers — August 21, 2026 (#1167)

★Today's full Connections answers, explained

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Things most animals need”. The words: NUTRITION, OXYGEN, SLEEP, WATER.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Calls to begin a performance”. The words: ACTION, CURTAIN UP, PLACES, SHOWTIME.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “___ kids”. The words: COMEBACK, KARATE, SUNDANCE, WIMPY.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “Once in a ___”. The words: BLUE MOON, GENERATION, LIFETIME, WHILE.

The puzzle, explained

The purple group's genius was that all four phrases complete "once in a ___" but feel like they belong everywhere else—especially BLUE MOON, which screams "rare event" and could've easily fit with the yellow survival group if you weren't paying attention to the exact wording. GENERATION and LIFETIME are sneaky because they're common time periods that don't immediately trigger the "once in a" pattern, and WHILE is deliberately vague in a way that makes you second-guess whether it even works (it absolutely does). The real trap was probably BLUE MOON trying to pull you toward the yellow group, or maybe LIFETIME tempting you to think about biological necessities, when the whole purple category was actually a tight wordplay knot all along.

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

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