NYT Connections #972 was published on Saturday, February 7, 2026. If you want help without immediately seeing the solution, use the four hints below in order. The category names come next, followed by the complete word groups behind a clearly marked spoiler warning.
Hints for Connections #972
These clues point toward each group without naming the categories or revealing the 16 entries.
- Side of dice
- Basic math
- Required for grammar
- Not uppercase
Category names
Need a stronger nudge? The four categories are:
- Pips on a die
- Symbols used in arithmetic
- Punctuation marks
- Lowercase letters
Spoiler: the answers to Connections #972
The complete groups are below. Stop here if you are still solving.
| Color | Category | Members |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Pips on a die | FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO |
| Green | Symbols used in arithmetic | DIVIDED BY, EQUALS, MINUS, PLUS |
| Blue | Punctuation marks | COLON, ELLIPSIS, PERIOD, QUOTATION MARK |
| Purple | Lowercase letters | I, L, T, X |
Why this puzzle was easy to misread
The word set deliberately places visual and symbolic ideas next to one another. Dice pips can look like punctuation marks when you focus on their shapes rather than their purpose. The lowercase X can also suggest the multiplication sign, even though this group is about letter case. Separating “what the item looks like” from “what category it formally belongs to” helps resolve those traps.
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How NYT Connections works
Connections presents 16 words and asks you to divide them into four groups of four that share a theme. The groups are color-coded by difficulty: yellow is the most straightforward, followed by green and blue, while purple is intended to be the trickiest. Only one complete arrangement is accepted, and some words are designed to appear compatible with more than one group.
A practical solving order
- Scan for an obvious literal set, such as the number words in this puzzle.
- Test a suspected group against every remaining entry; a category must contain exactly four members.
- Look for competing interpretations before submitting, especially when a word could fit punctuation, mathematics or typography.
- Leave the most abstract group until the board is reduced. Here, the lowercase-letter set becomes clearer after the arithmetic symbols and punctuation marks are removed.
When and where to play
The daily Connections puzzle releases at midnight in the player’s local timezone. NYT lists the Games app, the Connections game at nytimes.com, The Athletic and the News app as access routes. The game is free to play, and signing in with an NYT account can preserve progress across devices. NYT’s full archive, which the Help Center says dates back to June 12, 2023, is available to eligible All Access and Games subscribers; access terms can change, so check NYT’s current account and subscription information.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Quick recap
For February 7, 2026, #972 groups number words as die pips, operation words as arithmetic symbols, named marks as punctuation, and I/L/T/X as lowercase letters.
Quick Recap
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