The NYT Connections puzzle for September 14, 2026 has landed, and today’s categories are built around birds, undercover work, single-use plastic items, and grass. The game resets at midnight and hands players 16 words grouped into four color-coded sets. Each set contains four words that share a common thread — yellow is the easiest, purple the hardest — and guessing wrong costs you a life. Players get up to four mistakes before the game ends.
If you want the full solution, it is at the bottom of this page. If you want to solve it yourself, keep reading for hints, tips, and strategies.
What Is Connections?
Connections is the latest daily word game from the New York Times. Associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu helped create the game and bring it to the publication’s Games section. The game asks players to find common threads between words, grouping four words per set that share a characteristic. It is played on web browsers and mobile devices.
Each puzzle features 16 words, split into four categories. The sets can cover book titles, software, country names, or almost anything else. Multiple words may seem like they fit together, but only one answer is correct. Get all four words in a set right, and those words are removed from the board. Miss and you lose a life.
Players can rearrange and shuffle the board to spot connections more easily. Each category is color-coded: yellow is the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share your results on social media.
The Hints For Today’s Categories
Today’s puzzle gives you a hook before it tells you the answer. The hints describe the categories without naming them directly, which means you can test your guesses against the clues before seeing the full solution.
Yellow: Birds that like water
Green: Undercover
Blue: Disposables
Purple: Kinds of grass
The hints are deliberately vague. “Birds that like water” points to waterfowl, while “Undercover” suggests espionage or informants. “Disposables” points to single-use items, and “Kinds of grass” is the broadest of the four.
The Full Categories For Today
For those who want to see the categories outright, the puzzle’s official solution reveals them in full:
Yellow: Waterbirds
Green: Informant
Blue: Common Single-Use Plastic Items
Purple: Grass
That ordering matches the hint list exactly. Yellow stays the easiest, green follows, then blue, then purple. The purple category is the only one left partially blank in the hints, which means the full solution fills in the missing word.
How To Play Connections
The rules are simple once you know them. You are handed 16 words and told they fall into four groups. Each group has a common thread, and your job is to find it. Rearranging the board helps, because the game lets you shuffle the words into columns that match their categories.
Guessing wrong costs you a life. Players get up to four lives, and once you run out, the game ends. That means careful play is rewarded over guessing randomly.
The color coding matters too. Yellow is the easiest set, so tackling it first can save you a life later. Purple is the hardest, and it pays to leave it until last if you can.
The Answers To Today’s Puzzle
The solution to today’s Connections #1191 is revealed below. The answers are grouped by category, just as the puzzle presents them.
Yellow: Waterbirds
COOT, GOOSE, LOON, TEAL
Green: Informant
CANARY, RAT, SNITCH, STOOLIE
Blue: Common Single-Use Plastic Items
BAG, CUTLERY, STIRRER, STRAW
Purple: Grass
BLUE, CRAB, LEMON, WHEAT
Each set has a distinct theme. The waterbirds are all aquatic species, the informants are all words for spies or snitches, the disposables are everyday plastic items, and the grass set includes bluegrass, crabgrass, lemon grass, and wheatgrass.
What We Make Of Today’s Puzzle
The categories are the clever part of this puzzle. Rather than handing players abstract clues, Connections ties its themes to real-world things — birds, undercover work, disposable plastics, and grass. That gives solvers a hook beyond pure guesswork.
The yellow category, waterbirds, is the most obvious. A coot, a goose, a loon, and a teal are all waterfowl. The green category, informant, is similarly straightforward. A canary, a rat, a snitch, and a stoolie are all words for people who betray secrets.
The blue category, common single-use plastic items, is a step harder. A bag, cutlery, a stirrer, and a straw are all things you use once and throw away. The purple category, grass, is open enough that other grasses could fit, which is why it is the hardest set.
That openness is part of what makes the purple set challenging. Players have to think beyond the literal to find the thread, which is exactly what the color coding predicts.
Where To Find More Puzzles
Connections is not the only daily game on the Times’ Games section. If you are also playing NYT Strands, Mashable has hints for that puzzle too. The site’s games hub also offers Mahjong, Sudoku, free crosswords, and more.
The puzzle resets at midnight, so today’s solution is already behind you.
Key Facts Box
- Game: NYT Connections
- Date: September 14, 2026
- Category count: Four (yellow, green, blue, purple)
- Words per puzzle: 16
- Mistakes allowed: Up to four
- Solution: Revealed in full above
The puzzle is not too difficult if you know about birds, and today’s categories lean heavily on that theme. The hints give you a running start, and the full solution confirms the patterns.
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