Connections #1246 Answers Revealed for November 8, 2026
The New York Times” daily word game Connections resets at midnight each day, and today’s puzzle — Connections #1246 — carried four groups ranging from gym slang to vegetable puns, Mashable reported. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping create the game, which now sits alongside Wordle in the publication’s Games section and has become a social media fixture.
Each puzzle presents 16 words that players must sort into four color-coded categories, with yellow the easiest and purple the hardest. A wrong guess counts as a mistake, and players get four mistakes before the game ends. The Times’ testers rated this puzzle 3 out of 5 in difficulty, according to the New York Times” Connections Companion.
Today’s Connections Hints, Ranked Easiest to Hardest
Players who wanted a nudge without full answers got four category hints. CNET framed them this way: yellow relates to Arnold Schwarzenegger, green to “fancy updos and perms,” blue to “explain it to me,” and purple to “sounds like.”
Mashable offered parallel hints: “Fit” for yellow, “New do” for green, “Aha moment” for blue, and “Healthy eats” for purple.
The Four Connections #1246 Categories and Answers
Yellow: Muscular
The yellow group — the easiest — was Muscular, with the answers BUILT, CUT, JACKED and RIPPED, both Mashable and CNET confirmed.
Green: Hair Salon Services
The green group was Hair salon services: BLOWOUT, COLOR, EXTENSIONS and TRIM.
Blue: Things That Help Make Sense of a Situation
The blue group was Things that help make sense of a situation: CLARITY, CONTEXT, INSIGHT and PERSPECTIVE.
Purple: Vegetable Homophones
The purple group, the toughest, was Vegetable homophones: CARAT (carrot), CHARRED (chard), KORN (corn) and LEAK (leek), CNET explained.
Players Link Words Through Shared Themes
Connections challenges players to find common threads between four words, and the Times deliberately chooses words that could fit multiple groups — meaning the obvious guess is almost always wrong, CNET noted. Players can shuffle the board to spot connections, and completed groups disappear from the grid. Like Wordle, results can be shared on social media, and registered players can track win rates, streaks and perfect scores through the Times Games section. The Times also offers a Connections Bot that scores answers numerically after play.
Games by The Times Include Connections
Connections is one of several daily games from the Times, alongside Wordle, Strands, the Mini Crossword and Pips — all available on web browsers and mobile devices.
Frequently Asked Questions About Connections #1246
What time does Connections reset?
Connections resets at midnight in the player’s local time zone. To accommodate all time zones, the New York Times’ publishes two Connections Companion articles daily, dated on Eastern Standard Time.
Connections is a daily game about finding common threads between words. Players must select four groups of four words without making more than four mistakes. https://t.co/9L4ZG6J3kf pic.twitter.com/076YCknvAI
Who created Connections?
The New York Times’ credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping create the game and bringing it to the publication’s Games section.
What made the purple group in #1246 difficult?
The purple group required recognizing words that sound like vegetables — carat for carrot, charred for chard, Korn for corn and leak for leek — a wordplay category CNET described as sometimes bizarre.
Earlier coverage: NYT Connections Hints and Answers for November 5, 2026
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