NYT Connections #1187 answer & hints: Thursday, September 10, 2026

Updated: Thursday, September 10, 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 #1187 of Thursday, September 10, 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 (September 10, 2026)

1One word from each group

Yellow (easiest): one of its words is “ACTINIUM”.
Green (easy): one of its words is “AIR CONDITIONER”.
Blue (tricky): one of its words is “ATLANTIC CITY”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): one of its words is “ADULT CONTEMPORARY”.

2Category hints (no answers)

Yellow (easiest): the theme is “Chemical elements”.
Green (easy): the theme is “What you might see sticking out of a window”.
Blue (tricky): the theme is “Bruce springsteen classics”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): the theme is “Ending in synonyms for "happening now"”.

3One full group revealed

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Chemical elements”, and its four words are: ACTINIUM, KRYPTON, LEAD, SULFUR.

Connections answers — September 10, 2026 (#1187)

★Today's full Connections answers, explained

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Chemical elements”. The words: ACTINIUM, KRYPTON, LEAD, SULFUR.
Green (easy) — the connection is “What you might see sticking out of a window”. The words: AIR CONDITIONER, CATIO, CLOTHESLINE, FLOWER BOX.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Bruce springsteen classics”. The words: ATLANTIC CITY, BADLANDS, BORN TO RUN, THUNDER ROAD.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “Ending in synonyms for "happening now"”. The words: ADULT CONTEMPORARY, ALTERNATING CURRENT, REPRESENT, SEXTANT.

The puzzle, explained

The purple group was absolutely brutal because it hinged on spotting that each word ends with a synonym for "happening now"—ADULT CONTEMPORARY ends in "AC" (alternating current), ALTERNATING CURRENT ends in "AC," REPRESENT ends in "PRESENT," and SEXTANT ends in "TANT" (a stretch, but "tant" as in "at present" or more convincingly, it's meant to be parsed as "SEX-TANT" where TANT sounds like "present" in some accents, though honestly this one's the weakest link). The real trap was that LEAD, SULFUR, ACTINIUM, and KRYPTON all sound like they *could* belong to a Springsteen category or a window display category at first glance, so solvers got distracted trying to force those into the blue group instead of immediately recognizing the chemical elements. And ATLANTIC CITY is such a famous Springsteen song that it probably pulled attention away from figuring out the wordplay category entirely.

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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