NYT Connections #1200 answer & hints: Wednesday, September 23, 2026

Updated: Wednesday, September 23, 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 #1200 of Wednesday, September 23, 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 23, 2026)

1One word from each group

Yellow (easiest): one of its words is “KEYS”.
Green (easy): one of its words is “AGE VERIFICATION”.
Blue (tricky): one of its words is “CONDENSED MILK”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): one of its words is “BITCOIN”.

2Category hints (no answers)

Yellow (easiest): the theme is “Things you grab before leaving the house”.
Green (easy): the theme is “Website hurdles”.
Blue (tricky): the theme is “Things that come in cans”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): the theme is “Ending in synonyms for "term"”.

3One full group revealed

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Things you grab before leaving the house”, and its four words are: KEYS, PHONE, SUNGLASSES, WALLET.

Connections answers — September 23, 2026 (#1200)

★Today's full Connections answers, explained

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Things you grab before leaving the house”. The words: KEYS, PHONE, SUNGLASSES, WALLET.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Website hurdles”. The words: AGE VERIFICATION, CAPTCHA, COOKIE CONSENT, PAYWALL.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Things that come in cans”. The words: CONDENSED MILK, PAINT, SHAVING CREAM, SPAM.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “Ending in synonyms for "term"”. The words: BITCOIN, RECORD LABEL, RUB-A-DUB, SURINAME.

The puzzle, explained

The purple group was beautifully sneaky because it required you to hear the words differently than you'd normally say them. BITCOIN ends in "coin" (a term/period), RECORD LABEL ends in "label" (a term for a musical period), RUB-A-DUB ends in "dub" (slang for term/period), and SURINAME ends in "name" (another word for term)—they all hide synonyms for "term" in their final syllables. The real trap was SPAM, which absolutely belongs in the cans group and has nothing to do with wordplay, so it probably distracted you from even considering that a wordplay category might exist. Similarly, SHAVING CREAM and CONDENSED MILK are such obviously can-able items that they feel locked in, but PAINT is the one that might've made you second-guess whether something weirder was happening with that blue group.

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

Full Connections archive (137 puzzles) → · How to play Connections (and win more) →