NYT Connections #1199 answer & hints: Tuesday, September 22, 2026

Updated: Tuesday, September 22, 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 #1199 of Tuesday, September 22, 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 22, 2026)

1One word from each group

Yellow (easiest): one of its words is “THAT”.
Green (easy): one of its words is “ACCENT”.
Blue (tricky): one of its words is “AGREE”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): one of its words is “CAFE”.

2Category hints (no answers)

Yellow (easiest): the theme is “Demonstratives”.
Green (easy): the theme is “Embellishment”.
Blue (tricky): the theme is “Options on a multiple choice survey”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): the theme is “Beverages with acute accents removed”.

3One full group revealed

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Demonstratives”, and its four words are: THAT, THESE, THIS, THOSE.

Connections answers — September 22, 2026 (#1199)

★Today's full Connections answers, explained

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Demonstratives”. The words: THAT, THESE, THIS, THOSE.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Embellishment”. The words: ACCENT, DETAIL, FLOURISH, TOUCH.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Options on a multiple choice survey”. The words: AGREE, DISAGREE, NEUTRAL, OTHER.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “Beverages with acute accents removed”. The words: CAFE, PATRON, ROSE, THE.

The puzzle, explained

The purple group was delightfully devious—it's beverages that lose their accent marks: **CAFÉ** becomes CAFE, **PATRON** becomes PATRÓN (a tequila brand), **ROSÉ** becomes ROSE, and **THÉ** becomes THE (French for tea). What made it brutal is that three of these words are incredibly common English words that fit perfectly into other categories, especially THAT and THESE from the demonstratives group or AGREE and DISAGREE from the survey options. THE was probably the trickiest bait since it's such a fundamental English word that it felt like it had to connect to something, when really you needed to think of it as French tea with the accent stripped away. ROSE likely pulled people toward TOUCH, DETAIL, and FLOURISH as words related to adding aesthetic qualities to something, which was the perfect trap for the embellishment category.

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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