No way that's purple: the NYT Connections thread

Because it's just not Wordle

Ha nice title :)

Didn't think today's was "exceptionally tricky" at all. I guess there was crossover but seeing the four categories unlocked what was what

https://i.imgur.com/f80rGy7.png

Got beaten by today’s too. Got purple first, then blue, then crapped out on the synonyms for zest, and missed the palindromes altogether (I think since that kind of connection is usually reserved for purple)

prefixes, lame.

That’s one I saw right away but was afraid to guess because, as you say, lame

Yes, I expected the final description to be more qualified than just that.

I guessed it first but in my head the category title was Latin prepositions. Made an underwhelmed noise out loud when the real one popped up.

(One of them is only an adverb anyway so I guess I should make the underwhelmed noise at myself)

The fuck is a California King?

It's a size of mattress.

ah! I got it, but only just.

Thanks for all the hidden text. I’ve been staring at the 4 purple words off and on all day.

California king I had never come across, whereas super king I had (in two contexts!) so yesterday I was a special snowflake

https://i.imgur.com/kJGlAOw.jpeg

I am from California and the only context I have encountered the term is online shopping for bedding…

I was honestly thinking for a few minutes… did the Sacramento NBA team change their name ? …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhBorPm6JjQ

Never heard of California king in my life.

And so I forgot to just reveal yesterday’s purple and lost my streak.

How are everyone's stats looking? Here are mine

https://i.imgur.com/DwM5Cq9.jpeg

I kind of wonder if the better players (not me!) will start deliberately aiming for higher score achievements like Reverse Rainbow now that the Bot exists? Personally, I just like getting the game right.

i can’t hear “california king” without thinking of chappell roan’s “red wine supernova”

My pal and I aimed for reverse rainbow already – slightly annoyed it's now a thing with a name!

omg i didn't get a single group! i spotted the yellow but whip and pump were also possibles for that, saw three of the blue group but would never have got the green.

I got them all in reverse rainbow order , but the order was a bit of a fluke as I strongly disagree with it. "Fire" only fitting with the other three when "up" is appended made it a ridiculous yellow imo, esp given the "pump" red herring.

And it was made harder by my knowing slides as sliders

funny, i thought today’s was the easiest in a long while.

But Alba, that category was get excited, with “up”, so that seems like a spurious complaint

I made three awful mistakes in a row before going “I’m not awake, don’t do this right now”. I later solved it after having coffee but yeesh

Dan, what I meant was amp, hype, pump and maybe psych all worked as the category without the up, so having to think of the 'up' bit to get that fire also belonged, was tricky! Connections Bot says only 19% of players got it as the first category, which is pretty low for a yellow)

oic, carry on

didn’t we have types of shoes as a category relatively recently?

On August 19 last year

I'd clearly not learned then that sliders can be called slides, as the four shoes were CLOG, PUMP, WEDGE and SLIDE (with MARY JANE as red herring) https://connections.swellgarfo.com/nyt/69

Ooo I didnt know there was an archive for Connexions.

Today’s was fun

Hard! Count myself lucky for only making one mistake (LAD was a clever one)

I managed a perfect score, blue first

i screwed up today. got the disney dog one but not having heard of a sizzle reel screwed up my "reels"

only yellow correct today :( wasted some guesses on green that went wrong

Got it in perfect order today, no mistakes.

Was also a bit thrown by reels, though I insisted on trying to get that one early on, rather than moving on, thus mucking up my score a bit. Got dogs right off the bat.

I managed a perfect score, blue first

High five to another member of today's 96 club.

Oof. Today's (Thurs) purple might trip up some people. I didnt get it, it was just the only category left. Luckily the others were easy. Also lol at the initial placement or row 1.

OF row 1 that should say.

i got purple second, pretty good category imo

I got it perfect reverse rainbow: though Angers isn't a place I know and I didn't know the PBS category, green and yellow were quite easy and Angers was the only likely sounding place that remained so the whole thing only took me 4 mins I think

reverse rainbow too. didn't actually spot the parties - i'm hopeless at the ones where you have to add a word! but i had an inkling about frontline and masterpiece (just as 'some kind of american tv thing') and the other two were by far the most likely to fit.

didn't have a clue about the Blue group but got all of the others easily enough

It got a 5/5 rating on the Connections Bot calculus so ilx has overperformed today

I would have trouble trying to go for reverse rainbow because I can never really see what is meant to distinguish the three easy ones from each other (and I don’t remember the order of the colours). Purple are easy to spot because they tend to be of a few particular types but you could put the others in any order & I’d be like ok sure

Yeah I think it helps that it's the same setter each day as you have to kind of get inside her head. I do quite often get yellow and green in wrong order

same, PYBG

xxPxBYG. Nearly fucked it for the second day in a row. Saw purple but wasted two goes trying to get the fourth – "stat" is not on my radar. Then wasted final go with a brainfart even though I'd worked it all out by then .

PYBG

XP: that word strikes me as a *very* "US TV drama" thing. I distinctly remember having to look it up in the not so distant past!

- - -

#1071 (SUN) GPYB -- had no idea whatsoever rainbow-wise, but this one felt fairly straightforward otherwise.

xPxGBY. Rushed that one a bit and got green leftovers wrong, putting hose in yellow

BPYG. P seemed easier than yellow!

BPGY. Yeah P seemed far too easy to be a P

I suspect I entered (what turned out to be) G first -- not that it's actually P-like either, on reflection -- simply because I found it trickiest, for the reason Alba mentioned.

PGYB, deeply flawed color arrangement

Monday RR nice balance (though B was leftovers of a familiar nature)

#1072 (MON) GBYP -- Have to confess to Googling to confirm a hypothesis about B. Y just looked lazy or a red herring, and I was completely blind to P. Incidentally, I must pedantically insist that a Kiwi is a New Zealand bird. The fruit is Kiwifruit, stemming from marketing by NZ Chinese gooseberry growers. Abbreviation is for savages.

RR, all fell sweetly into place once i spotted P

GYPB. No idea what Blue was.

RR

YBPG

I was all over the place today

PBYG - fuck them, i RR'd it any other day of the week.

BYPG. I thought blue might be a red herring but went for it anyway. I liked Purple when I worked out

xYGPB. Eventually saw P. Would never have got B of course

#1073 (TUES) PGBY -- fairly slow going for me today. B being wholly unfamiliar didn't help.

(Tuesday) B was leftovers but I appreciated a new topic so we don't have sports teams and sandwiches all the time

Amen.

Monday - RR without even trying lol

YGPB - had to work for this one, i was aware of Superfudge, but I'm not sure Judy Blume's work is much of a thing in the UK so I had no idea what else would go in B

YGPB, no idea about any of the Bs.

xYxBxPG

Another miskey nudged me close to bust.

I knew Superfudge and Forever were Judy Blume books – had to guess the others

Managed RR today despite having no idea about any of the blue stuff

YGxxxx, faceplanted

Ditto to WmC

RR, B was leftovers

BYPG. Blue was easy for me but I was a school librarian for a couple of years

#1074 (WED) RR -- a really quick one. Probably the most straightforward for at least a week, for me.

RR. I was just picking them out as I saw them and that’s the order I got

RR, but took me a second

PYGB - i have never in my entire life seen a stove with a simmer setting

PxxYxBG. Made incredibly heavy weather of sorting out G and B given that I could see both categories

#1075 (THURS) Basically gave up after B. I increasingly cease to care upon sensing a landslide of unfamiliar stuff. Especially when my beloved Pips remains to be done lol!

Thursday: Y very much a mystery, I have no idea what half of these are

BGYP. I got the yellow category straight away but realised there were far too many to fit. as a Britisher I only know about chess pie from having a few US baking books

although actually shoofly is in one of my Mary Berry books from the 80s. it's probably pretty obscure here though

B then bust. Pretty dispiriting to get B then look at the rest in utter bewilderment. I actually did spot pies and butts but couldn't get the right combination for either. Though looking at the answers now I can't see what else I picked for butts!

Connections
Puzzle #1075
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟦🟦

Similar to ledge i saw the butts but dismissed it as surely moon and peach were in the pie category, then course-corrected

p good puzzle

BxYGP. This was #250 for my streak and I definitely had to fight for it. Had a vague sense of Y and G but got a little lucky with the guesses in the end

xxGBYP

Even in the US, shoofly and chess are rarely served or seen outside of church fundraiser cookbooks.

60% fail rate today. I have never heard of shoofly pie. Reverse rainbow.

BYPG. Pretty sure chess was used in a previous puzzle. Really didn’t believe green was going to be that until the end.

Connections
Puzzle #1075
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟩🟨🟨
🟨🟩🟩🟨
🟨🟩🟩🟨
🟨🟩🟨🟨 lol

Even in the US, shoofly and chess are rarely served or seen outside of church fundraiser cookbooks.

― bendy, Thursday, May 21, 2026 6:40 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not to be weird, but I think this might be a racial thing? Like, I see Chess and Shoofly pies on menus all the time in Philly, the very Black city I call home.

BxPxYG

Pretty much fluked G and Y though. Didn't see butts at all (not familiar with can and caboose only rings a bell now I know the category.