NYT Connections #1198 answer & hints: Monday, September 21, 2026

Updated: Monday, September 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 #1198 of Monday, September 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 (September 21, 2026)

1One word from each group

Yellow (easiest): one of its words is “COMPOSE”.
Green (easy): one of its words is “CHUM”.
Blue (tricky): one of its words is “CAPTURE”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): one of its words is “BEET”.

2Category hints (no answers)

Yellow (easiest): the theme is “Email buttons”.
Green (easy): the theme is “Ways to attract fish”.
Blue (tricky): the theme is “Chess verbs”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): the theme is “Starts of composers' names”.

3One full group revealed

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Email buttons”, and its four words are: COMPOSE, DRAFTS, SENT, SPAM.

Connections answers — September 21, 2026 (#1198)

★Today's full Connections answers, explained

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Email buttons”. The words: COMPOSE, DRAFTS, SENT, SPAM.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Ways to attract fish”. The words: CHUM, FLY, SPINNER, WORM.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Chess verbs”. The words: CAPTURE, CASTLE, CHECK, MATE.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “Starts of composers' names”. The words: BEET, BRAH, CHOP, VIVA.

The puzzle, explained

Today's puzzle had a delightfully sneaky purple group that worked through composer name beginnings: BEET (Beethoven), BRAH (Brahms), CHOP (Chopin), and VIVA (Vivaldi). The trick was that these words are all legitimate English words on their own, so your brain wanted to find a more obvious connection between them rather than recognizing they were truncated classical composer names. CHOP was probably the trickiest bait—it could've felt like it belonged in the fishing group with FLY, WORM, SPINNER, and CHUM, since chopping bait is definitely a thing. Similarly, MATE might have pulled your eye toward the composer words since "mate" is how Brits say friend, but it was actually the chess verb group (CAPTURE, CASTLE, CHECK, MATE) where "mate" means checkmate. The email buttons (COMPOSE, DRAFTS, SENT, SPAM) were straightforward enough, but getting those last two groups sorted required resisting the obvious connections and thinking laterally.

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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