The Saturday edition of NYT Connections arrives with puzzle #1140, serving up a grid that rewards multilingual thinking, financial knowledge, and a sharp eye for familiar phrases.
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 #1140:
STEAK | LEONE | PRIMO | MALL
MADRE | MIST | POKER | CHOKE
CLUB | RAND | TEAR | NAIRA
HIJO | KWANZA | WELL | ABUELA
A seemingly random collection that somehow connects into four perfect categories.
Strategic Hints (No Spoilers Yet)
Yellow Category Nudge: Picture a family tree labeled in a language other than English.
Green Category Clue: Think about the physical signs that appear when someone becomes emotional, then add the same short particle to each candidate.
Blue Category Hint: Travel across one continent and consider what changes hands when people pay for something.
Purple Category Teaser: One missing word can precede four entries to create familiar compounds and activities.
The Full Solutions
Last chance to solve independently: answers below
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Yellow (Spanish Relatives): ABUELA, HIJO, MADRE, PRIMO
ABUELA, HIJO, MADRE, and PRIMO are Spanish family terms meaning grandmother, son, mother, and cousin, respectively.
PRIMO is the likeliest distraction because it can look like a general foreign-language clue rather than a specific family relationship.
Green (Start To Cry, With "up"): CHOKE, MIST, TEAR, WELL
CHOKE, MIST, TEAR, and WELL each pair with UP to describe the onset of crying: choke up, mist up, tear up, and well up.
MIST, TEAR, and WELL all carry watery associations on their own, which makes CHOKE feel like the outsider until UP reveals the shared construction.
Blue (African Currencies): KWANZA, LEONE, NAIRA, RAND
KWANZA, LEONE, NAIRA, and RAND are African currencies, used in Angola, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and South Africa, respectively.
RAND and LEONE can register first as surnames or proper names, disguising the monetary connection more effectively than KWANZA and NAIRA.
Purple (Strip ___): CLUB, MALL, POKER, STEAK
CLUB, MALL, POKER, and STEAK all follow STRIP, producing strip club, strip mall, strip poker, and strip steak.
The trick works because the four completed phrases span a venue, a retail development, a card-game variant, and a cut of beef, leaving little semantic overlap before the shared opener appears.
The Verdict
The Spanish relatives should fall first for solvers with even modest Spanish vocabulary, while the crying phrases become clear once UP enters the picture.
The real trap sits between POKER and CLUB, which naturally suggest cards, while RAND and LEONE can masquerade as names instead of currencies.
The purple set is the streak-decider because its completed phrases occupy four unrelated corners of everyday language.
Reset and Repeat
Today's best turn is the shared opener that transforms four stubborn nouns into instantly recognizable phrases. Reset the grid tomorrow and look for another small word doing outsized work.
For now, puzzle #1140 is solved. See you at midnight for the next round.
