NYT Connections #986, published Saturday, February 21, 2026, groups its 16 words into Experience, Attendance Status, result commentary, and car brands with two extra letters. The complete answers are below, followed by the wordplay behind the trickiest category.
Connections #986 answers at a glance
| Color | Category | Words |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Experience | BACKGROUND, HISTORY, LIFE, PAST |
| Green | Attendance Status | ABSENT, EXCUSED, LATE, PRESENT |
| Blue | Commentary about your Connections results | GREAT, PERFECT, PHEW, SOLID |
| Purple | Car brands plus two letters | AUDITS, DODGERS, INFINITIVE, MINION |
Connections asks you to divide 16 words into four groups of four. You can make up to four mistakes, so identifying the most literal set first helps preserve attempts for the deliberately misleading words.
Hints for each Connections #986 category
Yellow: Experience
These words can all describe what someone has lived through or accumulated over time:
- BACKGROUND
- HISTORY
- LIFE
- PAST
Green: Attendance Status
Each word describes whether, or how, someone is present for an event or class:
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- ABSENT
- EXCUSED
- LATE
- PRESENT
Blue: Commentary about your Connections results
These are words you might say after seeing how you performed on the puzzle:
- GREAT
- PERFECT
- PHEW
- SOLID
Purple: Car brands plus two letters
For the purple group, remove the final two added letters to reveal a car brand:
- AUDITS = AUDI + TS
- DODGERS = DODGE + RS
- INFINITIVE = INFINITI + VE
- MINION = MINI + ON
The extra letters do not form one shared suffix; the connection is that each full puzzle word can be split into a car brand followed by two letters.
How to solve the puzzle without spoilers
- Lock in the attendance terms. ABSENT, EXCUSED, LATE and PRESENT form the most direct set, reducing the board to 12 words.
- Look for reaction words. GREAT, PERFECT and SOLID sound like evaluations, while PHEW supplies the relieved reaction that completes the result-commentary group.
- Separate broad experience synonyms. BACKGROUND, HISTORY, LIFE and PAST all describe experience, but several can also fit other contexts, so confirm the four-word set together.
- Inspect the leftovers for split points. The final four become AUDI-TS, DODGE-RS, INFINITI-VE and MINI-ON, revealing the purple category.
Why the purple group is difficult
The purple category disguises familiar brands inside ordinary-looking words. AUDITS reads naturally as a verb, DODGERS as a noun, INFINITIVE as a grammar term, and MINION as a character or follower. Testing whether a word starts with a car marque—and then checking that exactly two letters remain—exposes the intended pattern.
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This is puzzle #986, the Saturday, February 21, 2026 edition of NYT Connections. Players who want to revisit older boards can use the NYT Games subscription and its Connections puzzle archive; availability and access requirements are controlled by The New York Times.
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