NYT Connections hints and answers today, May 23, 2026

The New York Times continues to expand the popularity of its daily puzzle lineup with NYT Connections, a word game that challenges players to identify hidden relationships between seemingly unrelated terms. The May 23 puzzle (#1077) offers a fun mix of obvious associations and clever misdirection, making it an engaging challenge for both casual and experienced players. Today’s board features categories linked to vintage hairstyles, urgency-related words, Marvel characters and a playful Purple category inspired by Star Wars movie titles. This guide includes spoiler-free hints, the complete answers and a quick explanation of how the puzzle works.Connections is a daily word puzzle from The New York Times that asks players to group related words together. The game uses four colour-coded difficulty levels — Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple — with Yellow generally being the easiest and Purple often involving more abstract or wordplay-based logic.Players receive 16 words and must organise them into four groups of four. Each group shares a hidden connection that may involve themes, meanings, phrases, categories or linguistic tricks.Here are the correct groupings for today’s puzzle:Understand the objectiveThe puzzle presents 16 words arranged in a grid. Your goal is to organise them into four groups of four words that share a hidden connection.Access the puzzleA new Connections puzzle is released daily through The New York Times Games website and the NYT mobile app.Begin analysingScan all 16 words carefully and look for the most obvious links first. Rearranging the board can often help reveal hidden patterns and eliminate confusion.Submit your groupsSelect four words that you believe belong together and submit them as a group. Correct answers are locked into place automatically.Watch your mistakesPlayers have a limited number of incorrect guesses before the game ends, so strategic elimination becomes important for tougher categories.If you enjoy Connections, The New York Times also offers several other popular daily puzzle games:Wordle: Guess a five-letter word in six attemptsSpelling Bee: Create as many words as possible using a specific set of lettersThe Mini Crossword: A short daily crossword challengeStrands: A word-search-inspired puzzle built around hidden themes