NYT Connections #1193 answer & hints: Wednesday, September 16, 2026

Updated: Wednesday, September 16, 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 #1193 of Wednesday, September 16, 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 16, 2026)

1One word from each group

Yellow (easiest): one of its words is “LATIN”.
Green (easy): one of its words is “DIMENSION”.
Blue (tricky): one of its words is “BARRETT”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): one of its words is “BORAT”.

2Category hints (no answers)

Yellow (easiest): the theme is “Ending in metal elements”.
Green (easy): the theme is “Starting with u.s. coins”.
Blue (tricky): the theme is “Poets' middle names”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): the theme is “Sausages plus a letter”.

3One full group revealed

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Ending in metal elements”, and its four words are: LATIN, LONG JOHN SILVER, MARIGOLD, STEAM IRON.

Connections answers — September 16, 2026 (#1193)

★Today's full Connections answers, explained

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Ending in metal elements”. The words: LATIN, LONG JOHN SILVER, MARIGOLD, STEAM IRON.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Starting with u.s. coins”. The words: DIMENSION, NICKELODEON, PENNYWISE, QUARTERBACK.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Poets' middle names”. The words: BARRETT, CARLOS, ST. VINCENT, WADSWORTH.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “Sausages plus a letter”. The words: BORAT, CLINK, FRANK-N-FURTER, WIDENER.

The puzzle, explained

The purple group's brilliance lies in the misdirection—each answer is a sausage with one letter added, but the words themselves are so recognizable that your brain doesn't automatically think "sausage." FRANK-N-FURTER is obviously the Rocky Horror character, BORAT is the Sacha Baron Cohen movie, CLINK sounds like a prison sound effect, and WIDENER is a Harvard library—but they're actually FRANKFURTER, BRAT, LINK, and WIENER with letters inserted. The real trap was probably FRANK-N-FURTER pulling double duty, since you might try pairing it with other sausage-adjacent words like PENNYWISE (which definitely tempts you with the WIENER/PENNY sound connection, even though it's actually about U.S. coins) or even the HOTDOG vibes from LONG JOHN SILVER.

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.

More of today's puzzles

LinkedIn puzzles

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) →