The Thursday edition of NYT Connections arrives with puzzle #1117, serving up a grid that rewards pop-culture fluency, linguistic archaeology, and the ability to spot wordplay hiding in plain sight. Today's challenge particularly favors science-fiction fans and anyone who's ever wondered why we still say "talkie" with a straight face.
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 #1117:
MOCKINGBIRD | FIELD MOUSE | TOM-TOM | COURT JESTER
MIME | LOOKING GLASS | TRACK RECORD | BILLY GOAT
DIAMOND RING | SPECTACLES | DAN DAN NOODLES | COPYCAT
TALKIE | RICH TEXT | T-1000 | WATER CLOSET
A seemingly random collection that somehow connects into four perfect categories, though you'll need to think about words from multiple angles to crack the code.
Strategic Hints (No Spoilers Yet)
Yellow Category Nudge: Think about things that mirror, echo, or replicate something else, from human performers to fictional shapeshifters.
Green Category Clue: These are all words your great-grandparents would have recognized as perfectly normal, even though we've swapped them for newer terms.
Blue Category Hint: Each word in this group has a two-word identity that starts with a familiar personal moniker or nickname.
Purple Category Teaser: Look at the first word of each compound entry, they're all places where something happens, and that's your actual connection.
The Full Solutions
Last chance to solve independently: answers below
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Yellow (They Impersonate Other Things): COPYCAT, MIME, MOCKINGBIRD, T-1000
A clean, satisfying category that rewards both real-world and fictional knowledge. COPYCAT and MIME are straightforward, one mimics behavior, the other mimics actions silently. MOCKINGBIRD, the avian impressionist, borrows songs from other birds, while T-1000 (the liquid-metal Terminator from Terminator 2) is cinema's ultimate impersonator, able to copy any person or form. The trap? Don't confuse MOCKINGBIRD with the novel title or COURT JESTER with someone who merely performs, impersonation is the specific thread here.
Green (Old-Timey Names for Things We Still Use): LOOKING GLASS, SPECTACLES, TALKIE, WATER CLOSET
Language evolves, but the objects remain. LOOKING GLASS is what your grandmother called a mirror; SPECTACLES is the formal term for eyeglasses that mostly survives in optometry offices. TALKIE was the 1920s term for a sound film (as opposed to a silent one), and WATER CLOSET, often abbreviated W.C., is the prim, Victorian-era name for a bathroom. None of these words are obsolete; they're just linguistic fossils still kicking around in specific contexts.
Blue (Starting With Nicknames): BILLY GOAT, DAN DAN NOODLES, RICH TEXT, TOM-TOM
This one requires you to look past the whole phrase and focus on the first element. BILLY, DAN DAN, RICH, and TOM are all nicknames or common short forms of given names, William, Daniel, Richard, Thomas. BILLY GOAT is the animal (or the Chicago Bulls' nemesis), DAN DAN NOODLES is a Sichuan dish, RICH TEXT is a document format, and TOM-TOM is a handheld drum or navigation device. The misdirection? These words feel completely unrelated until you isolate the opening name. Sneaky, but fair.
Purple (Starting With Sports Venues): COURT JESTER, DIAMOND RING, FIELD MOUSE, TRACK RECORD
The trickiest category of the day, and the one most likely to end a perfect streak. COURT, DIAMOND, FIELD, and TRACK are all sports venues, a basketball or tennis court, a baseball diamond, a football or soccer field, and an athletics track. The full phrases, COURT JESTER, DIAMOND RING, FIELD MOUSE, TRACK RECORD, are completely unrelated to sports, but their opening words all describe places where games are played. This is pure pattern-recognition wordplay, and it's exactly the kind of lateral thinking that makes Connections worth playing every day.
The Verdict
Puzzle #1117 registers as moderate difficulty with a sting in the tail. Yellow falls quickly for anyone who recognizes synonym clusters, while green requires thinking about how language ages over time.
Blue separates the pop-culture and food enthusiasts from the rest of the pack, you need to spot that BILLY, DAN DAN, RICH, and TOM are all nicknames before the full phrases make sense. Purple, predictably, is the streak-ender: that sports-venue trick won't reveal itself without serious lateral thinking, and COURT JESTER is a particularly nasty red herring because it also sounds like it could belong in the impersonation category.
The real trap? MOCKINGBIRD and COPYCAT both lean so heavily into impersonation that you might assume COURT JESTER (a performer who mimics and entertains) belongs there too, but the jester's job is broader than pure impersonation, and that distinction matters. Meanwhile, TALKIE and LOOKING GLASS could tempt you into a vague "old things" category, but the actual green category is far more specific: old-timey names for things that still exist.
Reset and Repeat
Tomorrow's puzzle drops at midnight in your timezone. Until then, reflect on today's performance: did the sports-venue pattern click immediately, or did COURT JESTER and FIELD MOUSE send you down a dead end?
The beauty lies not in perfection but in training your brain to spot these hidden patterns.
For now, puzzle #1117 is solved. See you at midnight for round #1118.
