Here are the hints and answers for NYT Connections on September 16, 2026. Stop after the hints if you want to solve the grid yourself; the complete groups are farther down and clearly marked as spoilers.
How Connections works
Connections presents a bank of 16 words to sort into four groups of four, with each group linked by a shared theme. That description appears in the 2024 paper Missed Connections: Lateral Thinking Puzzles for Large Language Models by Graham Todd, Tim Merino, Sam Earle and Julian Togelius. The challenge is often spotting the intended relationship when words could fit more than one pattern.
TechRadar says the daily game is playable free through NYT Games on desktop or mobile. TechRadar’s September 16 guide gives the grid and category clues.
Hints for September 16
Try these broad clues in order, from least revealing to more specific:
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- Think periodic table.
- Money, money, money.
- They write verse.
- Look for a certain food hidden in these words.
Category clues
If the broader hints are not enough, these clues point more directly to each connection:
- Metallic final
- Begin with currency
- Middling wordsmiths
- Hot dogs etc.
Spoilers: September 16 answers
Stop here if you do not want the full solution. Parade and TechRadar identify the September 16, 2026 puzzle as game #1193, while Anagrammer labels the same date and answer groups #1295. The date and groups match across all three pages, but the numbering is inconsistent.
- Yellow — ENDING IN METAL ELEMENTS: LATIN, LONG JOHN SILVER, MARIGOLD, STEAM IRON. Their endings point to tin, silver, gold and iron.
- Green — STARTING WITH U.S. COINS: DIMENSION, NICKELODEON, PENNYWISE, QUARTERBACK. Each starts with dime, nickel, penny or quarter.
- Blue — POETS’ MIDDLE NAMES: BARRETT, CARLOS, ST. VINCENT, WADSWORTH.
- Purple — SAUSAGES PLUS A LETTER: BORAT, CLINK, FRANK-N-FURTER, WIDENER.
For the source guides, see Parade’s September 16 hints and answers, TechRadar’s September 16 guide and Anagrammer’s Connections answers page. The paper describing the puzzle format is available on arXiv.
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