The Sunday edition of NYT Connections arrives with puzzle #959, serving up a grid that rewards workplace vocabulary, tech literacy, and linguistic pattern recognition. Today's challenge particularly favors office workers, keyboard warriors, and those who can spot grammatical suffixes 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 #959:
SUB | RIBBON | HOOD | SHIP
SHELL | COVER | MENU | TUBE
ENTER | BOWTIE | FILL IN | WINDOWS
DOM | ALT | TEMP | ATE
A seemingly random collection that somehow connects into four perfect categories.
Strategic Hints (No Spoilers Yet)
Yellow Category Nudge: Think about workplace roles that aren't permanent positions.
Green Category Clue: Look at your computer keyboard for this category.
Blue Category Hint: These are all types of pasta, but not the most common ones.
Purple Category Teaser: These words can be added to the end of other words to change their meaning.
The Full Solutions
Last chance to solve independently: answers below
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Yellow (Act as a Backup): COVER, FILL IN, SUB, TEMP
These four words all describe temporary or substitute roles in various contexts.
"Cover" and "fill in" are verbs describing temporary replacement, while "sub" and "temp" are nouns for substitute and temporary workers.
Green (PC Keyboard Keys): ALT, ENTER, MENU, WINDOWS
These are all keys found on standard PC keyboards.
ALT is the alternate key, ENTER is the return key, MENU typically opens context menus, and WINDOWS opens the Start menu or operating system interface.
Blue (Pasta Shapes): BOWTIE, RIBBON, SHELL, TUBE
These represent specific pasta shapes, each named for their distinctive forms.
Bowtie pasta (farfalle), ribbon pasta (fettuccine or tagliatelle), shell pasta (conchiglie), and tube pasta (penne or ziti) are all common pasta varieties.
Purple (Suffixes): ATE, DOM, HOOD, SHIP
These are all grammatical suffixes that can be added to words to create nouns.
"-ate" forms verbs or adjectives, "-dom" indicates a state or condition, "-hood" denotes a state or condition, and "-ship" indicates a state or condition or skill.
The Verdict
Puzzle #959 registers as moderate difficulty with a clever linguistic twist.
Yellow falls quickly for anyone familiar with workplace terminology, while green requires basic computer literacy.
Blue separates the food enthusiasts from casual cooks, with pasta shapes that aren't immediately obvious to everyone.
Purple, predictably, is the streak-ender - those grammatical suffixes won't reveal themselves without recognizing their function as word endings.
The real trap lies in words like "ship" and "hood," which could easily be mistaken for nautical or clothing terms rather than grammatical suffixes.
Similarly, "menu" and "windows" might lead solvers toward restaurant or architecture themes before the keyboard connection becomes apparent.
Reset and Repeat
Tomorrow's puzzle drops at midnight in your timezone.
Until then, reflect on today's performance: did you spot the keyboard keys immediately, or did the pasta shapes trip you up?
The beauty lies not in perfection but in training your brain to spot these hidden patterns.
For now, puzzle #959 is solved.
See you at midnight for round #960.
