NYT Connections #1105: Hints and Solutions for June 20, 2026

The Saturday edition of NYT Connections arrives with puzzle #1105, serving up a grid that rewards wordplay sharpness and a good ear for homophones. Today's challenge particularly favors solvers who can spot silent letters and recognize classic song references hiding in plain sight.

What Makes Connections Tick

For newcomers, NYT Connections presents 16 words that must be sorted into four thematic groups of four. The twist?

You're limited to four mistakes, and the color-coded difficulty system (yellow being easiest, purple being trickiest) means surface-level connections often mislead.

Since its June 2023 launch, Connections has carved out its niche in the Times' puzzle ecosystem, standing alongside Wordle and the crossword as a daily ritual for millions of players worldwide. The game's genius lies in its red herrings, words that could fit multiple categories but belong in only one.

Today's Grid at a Glance

Here are the 16 words staring back at you in puzzle #1105:

CHAMPION | NEW YORK | KNICKS | JUMPIN'
ROCKER | KNAPSACK | BEANBAG | BOLSTER
JACKKNIFE | SUPPORT | KNOCK-KNOCK | LOUIE
BACK | STOOL | REBEL | RECLINER

A seemingly random collection that somehow connects into four perfect categories.

Strategic Hints (No Spoilers Yet)

Yellow Category Nudge: Think about words where the spelling is doing something unusual with the letter K.

Green Category Clue: These are all ways to say you're backing something, or someone.

Blue Category Hint: You probably sat in one of these today. All four are things you park yourself on.

Purple Category Teaser: These words all appear in the titles of famous hit songs, and each title repeats the word itself.

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The Full Solutions

Last chance to solve independently: answers below

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Yellow (Featuring Silent and Pronounced "K"s): JACKKNIFE, KNAPSACK, KNICKS, KNOCK-KNOCK

The easiest category rewards a keen eye for orthography. All four words contain a K, but the trick is that some are pronounced (JACKKNIFE, KNAPSACK) while others are silent (KNICKS, KNOCK-KNOCK).

Green (Endorse): BACK, BOLSTER, CHAMPION, SUPPORT

This is a clean synonym set for verbs meaning "to advocate for" or "to prop up." BOLSTER might have tripped up solvers who saw it as a pillow (it is also a chair-adjacent word in the blue category), but in this context it's purely about reinforcement.

Blue (Kinds of Chairs): BEANBAG, RECLINER, ROCKER, STOOL

A straightforward furniture grouping once you spot the pattern. ROCKER does double duty here, it's both a chair type and a music genre affiliation, but the chair meaning is the one that fits.

Purple (Words Repeated in Hit Song Titles): JUMPIN', LOUIE, NEW YORK, REBEL

This is the category that separates the music buffs from the rest. Each word appears in a famous song title where the word is said twice: "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (repeating "Jumpin'"), "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen, "New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra, and "Rebel Rebel" by David Bowie. That homophone-and-culture combo is the reason this sits in purple.

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The Verdict

Puzzle #1105 registers as moderate difficulty with a sting in the tail. Yellow falls quickly for anyone attuned to silent-letter quirks, while green is a straightforward synonym hunt.

Blue separates the furniture-minded from the rest, though the real trap is the overlap between BOLSTER (which could easily land in chairs) and ROCKER (which could be music). Purple, predictably, is the streak-ender, that song-title trick won't reveal itself without serious lateral thinking and a solid mental jukebox.

Reset and Repeat

Tomorrow's puzzle drops at midnight in your timezone. Until then, reflect on today's performance: did the silent-K pattern click immediately, or did the song references leave you scrambling?

The beauty lies not in perfection but in training your brain to spot these hidden patterns.

For now, puzzle #1105 is solved. See you at midnight for round #1106.