NYT Connections #1207 answer & hints: Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Updated: Wednesday, September 30, 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 #1207 of Wednesday, September 30, 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 30, 2026)

1One word from each group

Yellow (easiest): one of its words is “BOND”.
Green (easy): one of its words is “ETCH A SKETCH”.
Blue (tricky): one of its words is “BUGSY”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): one of its words is “DECENT”.

2Category hints (no answers)

Yellow (easiest): the theme is “Securities”.
Green (easy): the theme is “Things that are shaken (not stirred)”.
Blue (tricky): the theme is “Gangster movies”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): the theme is “Starting with month abbreviations”.

3One full group revealed

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Securities”, and its four words are: BOND, FUTURE, OPTION, STOCK.

Connections answers — September 30, 2026 (#1207)

★Today's full Connections answers, explained

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Securities”. The words: BOND, FUTURE, OPTION, STOCK.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Things that are shaken (not stirred)”. The words: ETCH A SKETCH, MARTINI, SPRAY PAINT, TAMBOURINE.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Gangster movies”. The words: BUGSY, CASINO, DONNIE BRASCO, SCARFACE.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “Starting with month abbreviations”. The words: DECENT, NOVELTY, OCTOPUSSY, SEPTUM.

The puzzle, explained

The purple group's trick was that each word literally *starts* with a month abbreviation hidden inside it: **DEC**ent (December), **NOV**elty (November), **OCT**opussy (October), and **SEPT**um (September). It's brutal because you're not looking for words *about* months—you're hunting for those three-letter abbreviations embedded right at the beginning, which is a totally different way of thinking than the rest of the puzzle. The real trap was **OCTOPUSSY**, the James Bond film, which probably had you second-guessing yourself since it actually *is* a movie title and could've theoretically fit with BUGSY, CASINO, and DONNIE BRASCO—but the connection there is strictly "gangster movies," not month abbreviations. That ambiguity is what made this one genuinely devious.

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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