NYT Connections #950 for Friday, January 16, 2026, groups the 16 words into hats, a child’s bedtime routine, musical acts whose only vowel is A, and words that follow “Grand.” Spoilers and explanations follow.
NYT Connections #950 was published on Friday, January 16, 2026. The four groups are kinds of hats, parts of a child’s bedtime routine, musical acts with A as their only vowel, and words that can follow “Grand”.
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Spoiler warning: The complete word groups and explanations appear below the hints.
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NYT Connections #950 hints for Friday, January 16
Use these clues in order if you want help without immediately revealing every answer:
#1 Best Overall
- Yellow hint: These are types of headwear.
- Green hint: These are associated with putting a child to bed.
- Blue hint: These musical acts use “A” as their only vowel.
- Purple hint: Each word can follow “Grand.”
The 16 words in Connections #950
The puzzle’s entries were:
PANAMA, ALABAMA, BATH, BAHAMA, SANTANA, BANANARAMA, SLAM, PAJAMAS, PIANO, PORKPIE, BRUSHING, KANSAS, DERBY, STORY, CANYON, FEDORA
One published result displayed the entry as “BRUSHNG,” but that appears to be a typographical or extraction error. The playable word in the solution is BRUSHING.
Connections #950 answers
Yellow: Kinds of hats
- DERBY
- FEDORA
- PANAMA
- PORKPIE
A derby, fedora, Panama hat, and porkpie hat are all types of headwear. PANAMA is deceptive because it initially looks like a place name, while PORKPIE may look like a food rather than a hat style. In the puzzle, both are being used as hat-related words.
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Rank #2
Green: Components of a child’s bedtime routine
- BATH
- BRUSHING
- PAJAMAS
- STORY
These entries describe a familiar bedtime sequence: a child might take a BATH, do some BRUSHING—usually brushing their teeth—put on PAJAMAS, and read or listen to a STORY. The category describes parts of the routine rather than objects alone, which is why the activity “BRUSHING” fits.
Blue: Musical acts with A as their only vowel
- ALABAMA
- BANANARAMA
- KANSAS
- SANTANA
The defining feature is the vowel constraint, not simply that all four entries are bands or musical acts. Each name contains A as its only vowel. This makes the group easy to overlook because ALABAMA and KANSAS can be read as U.S. place names, while SANTANA and BANANARAMA are more immediately recognizable as music-related names.
Purple: Grand ___
- BAHAMA
- CANYON
- PIANO
- SLAM
Each entry can follow “Grand”: Grand Bahama, the Grand Canyon, a grand piano, and a Grand Slam. This is the most phrase-based category in the puzzle, rather than a group whose entries share one obvious subject. BAHAMA is particularly easy to miss because it sits near the place-like entries in the grid.
Why Connections #950 was tricky
The puzzle uses several layers of misdirection:
- Place-name confusion: ALABAMA, KANSAS, PANAMA, and BAHAMA can all suggest geography, but they belong to three different groups.
- Two less-obvious hat entries: PANAMA and PORKPIE do not look like conventional clothing terms at first glance.
- The blue group needs a precise observation: The entries are not merely musical acts; their shared property is that A is the only vowel in each name.
- The purple group is phrase completion: Grand Bahama and grand piano are less immediately familiar pairings than Grand Canyon and Grand Slam.
Some community reactions described the puzzle as difficult because of unfamiliarity with “porkpie,” “Grand Bahama,” or the musical-act grouping. Those are subjective player impressions, not an official difficulty rating.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsHow to play NYT Connections
Connections presents 16 words that must be sorted into four groups of four. You can make up to four mistakes before the puzzle ends. The game is part of the New York Times Games experience. Account-based progress and history are available for archived Connections puzzles, and the Games app includes statistics and leaderboards.
For a better solving approach, first look for unusually specific relationships—such as a spelling pattern, a shared prefix, or a word that completes a familiar phrase. Before submitting a group, check whether one of its entries could fit a second category. That final check is especially important in #950, where several words resemble place names or ordinary nouns but belong elsewhere.
Keep playing after Connections #950
If you enjoy the format away from a screen, a New York Times Games puzzle book is an optional offline way to continue with NYT-style puzzles. Retail editions may include formats such as Connections, Wordle, Spelling Bee, and Mini Crossword, but a book should not be assumed to contain this exact January 16, 2026 puzzle unless its product details say so.
Readers looking for more daily games or archived puzzles can also investigate an NYT Games gift subscription or other official access options. Availability and any referral relationship should be verified separately; this article does not claim that a subscription or puzzle book is the source of the answers above.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are the categories in NYT Connections #950?
The four Connections #950 groups are hats; components of a child’s bedtime routine; musical acts with A as their only vowel; and words that follow “Grand.”
What is the blue group in Connections #950?
The blue group is ALABAMA, BANANARAMA, KANSAS, and SANTANA. Each is a musical act whose name uses A as its only vowel.
Best Value
Why is BAHAMA in the purple group?
The purple group is BAHAMA, CANYON, PIANO, and SLAM: Grand Bahama, Grand Canyon, grand piano, and Grand Slam.
The Bottom Line
The solution to NYT Connections #950 is: DERBY, FEDORA, PANAMA, PORKPIE for hats; BATH, BRUSHING, PAJAMAS, STORY for a child’s bedtime routine; ALABAMA, BANANARAMA, KANSAS, SANTANA for musical acts whose only vowel is A; and BAHAMA, CANYON, PIANO, SLAM for “Grand ___.”
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