NYT Connections #1195 answer & hints: Friday, September 18, 2026

Updated: Friday, September 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 #1195 of Friday, September 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 (September 18, 2026)

1One word from each group

Yellow (easiest): one of its words is “PHASE”.
Green (easy): one of its words is “FLIGHT”.
Blue (tricky): one of its words is “BOARDING”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): one of its words is “BRIEF”.

2Category hints (no answers)

Yellow (easiest): the theme is “Segment of a process”.
Green (easy): the theme is “Assortments of food/drink”.
Blue (tricky): the theme is “Parts of a flight”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): the theme is “___case”.

3One full group revealed

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Segment of a process”, and its four words are: PHASE, ROUND, STAGE, STEP.

Connections answers — September 18, 2026 (#1195)

★Today's full Connections answers, explained

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Segment of a process”. The words: PHASE, ROUND, STAGE, STEP.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Assortments of food/drink”. The words: FLIGHT, MEDLEY, PLATTER, SAMPLER.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Parts of a flight”. The words: BOARDING, CRUISE, LANDING, TAKEOFF.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “___case”. The words: BRIEF, PILLOW, STAIR, UPPER.

The puzzle, explained

The purple group's genius was that all four words can precede "CASE"—briefcase, pillowcase, staircase, uppercase—which is completely invisible until you see it. The real trap was FLIGHT, BOARDING, TAKEOFF, and LANDING, which absolutely *feel* like they belong together as aviation terms, but TAKEOFF and LANDING actually work better as parts of that flight sequence than BOARDING does. If you got stuck, PHASE was probably your anchor since it's the most obvious "segment of a process," but ROUND and STEP are sneaky because they can also mean rounds of a tournament or steps in a flight of stairs, making them just plausible enough to second-guess yourself.

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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