Game #1114 served up a tidy mix of instant clicks and one sneaky, letter-play finish. If you like crisp synonym clusters and clearly themed technical sets, today’s Connections should feel familiar — until you hit the suffix trick.
We’ll walk through the board, flag the obvious entries and call out the specific decoys that trip players up in the hardest set for 2026-06-29, NYT Connections Game #1114.
SPOILER WARNING: Below are full hints, group titles and the answers for Game #1114. If you want to solve unaided, stop now.
Today’s NYT Connections words
Sixteen tiles to sort — four tidy groups of four.
- WOOFER | RUFFIAN | INHALE | GROOT
- EMBARK | MAGNET | SNARF | CONE
- ROGUE | CRUSH | CABINET | STRUNK
- NUDIBRANCH | MISCREANT | GUZZLE | SCOUNDREL
Today’s NYT Connections hints
Spoiler-light nudges for each group.
- 🟡 Yellow: A set of older-sounding words that all mean the same kind of troublemaker.
- 🟢 Green: Four verbs that describe eating or taking in something with enthusiasm.
- 🔵 Blue: Literal parts you’d associate with loudspeakers and audio gear.
- 🟣 Purple: These words end with smaller words that are also parts of a tree.
Today’s NYT Connections group titles
- 🟡 Yellow: OLD TIMEY TROUBLEMAKERS
- 🟢 Green: CONSUME WITH GUSTO
- 🔵 Blue: PARTS OF A SPEAKER
- 🟣 Purple: ENDING IN PARTS OF A TREE
What are today’s NYT Connections answers?
- 🟡 Yellow (OLD TIMEY TROUBLEMAKERS): MISCREANT, ROGUE, RUFFIAN, SCOUNDREL
- 🟢 Green (CONSUME WITH GUSTO): CRUSH, GUZZLE, INHALE, SNARF
- 🔵 Blue (PARTS OF A SPEAKER): CABINET, CONE, MAGNET, WOOFER
- 🟣 Purple (ENDING IN PARTS OF A TREE): EMBARK, GROOT, NUDIBRANCH, STRUNK
Today’s Connections — expert analysis
The natural entry point was the Yellow pack — MISCREANT, ROGUE, RUFFIAN and SCOUNDREL read instantly as synonyms, so most players will grab that first. The Blue audio cluster is the other obvious pick: CABINET, CONE, MAGNET and WOOFER are textbook speaker parts and snap together quickly.
The puzzle’s sting is the Purple group. “Ending in parts of a tree” is a suffix-based link, so you have to spot embedded endings rather than obvious semantic ties — EMBARK, GROOT, NUDIBRANCH and STRUNK all conceal tree parts at their ends. That makes them easy to overlook and easy to misclassify. Decoys on this board were tidy: EMBARK reads like a verb and tempts players toward a “beginning” theme, while NUDIBRANCH is long and looks like a biological oddity that could belong in a different niche. On the Green side, CRUSH can mean reduce as well as eat, and SNARF/INHALE share the eating sense but might be parsed differently by second-guessers. Overall difficulty: a mostly straightforward board with one clever suffix group that pushes it into the upper-moderate range.
Yesterday’s NYT Connections answers (Game #1113)
For comparison, here are the four groups from Game #1113.
- 🟡 Yellow (HIGH-QUALITY): CHOICE, FINE, PRIME, SELECT
- 🟢 Green (SIGNALS TO COMMENCE): BEGIN, GO, NOW, START
- 🔵 Blue (ACCESSORIES FOR A GUITARIST): CAPO, PICK, SLIDE, STRAP
- 🟣 Purple (THEY HAVE BOARDS): CHESS, CORPORATION, DARTS, SURFER
What is NYT Connections?
NYT Connections is a daily word game that gives you 16 tiles and asks you to partition them into four groups of four. Each group shares a common link that can be semantic, literal, or (as today) a letter-play trick.
How to play NYT Connections
- Scan the 16 words and try to spot an obvious set of four that share a clear connection.
- Select groups of four until all words are categorized; groups do not overlap and every tile belongs to exactly one group.
- Expect a mix of surface meanings and occasional letterplay or suffix/prefix tricks — watch for embedded words.
More daily puzzle help from HashTechWave
- Today’s NYT Strands hints, spangram and answers
- Today’s NYT Spelling Bee answers and pangram
- Today’s Wordle hints, clues and answer
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What time does a new NYT Connections puzzle unlock?
A brand-new puzzle drops every single night at midnight local time across your specific region’s time zone on NYT Connection official site.
Why do some words seem to fit into two different groups?
The puzzle is specifically designed to include “decoys” or overlapping vocabulary. Always look for a backup configuration of words before locking in an early guess to protect your attempt counter.
Can I review answers to older puzzles?
Yes! If you are tracking performance over time or reviewing a grid you missed over the weekend, you can check out our dedicated NYT Connections Past Archive to look over historical solutions.
