Game #1097 landed with a mix of literal and figurative starts — charms, groups, repeats and river parts — that made for a tidy but tricky Connections board. If you stalled, you weren’t alone: several answers hide in plain sight behind stronger, more familiar senses.
Read on for the full breakdown of today’s groups, the precise answers, and a short playbook for where players typically went right — and wrong — on June 12, 2026.
SPOILER WARNING: The sections below list all four group titles and the exact answers for NYT Connections Game #1097. If you want to finish the puzzle yourself, stop now.
Today’s NYT Connections words
- SCHOOL DAYS | BED HEAD | QUOTE UNQUOTE | CURSE WORD
- COPY EDITOR | SPELL CHECKER | BANK TELLER | PACK RAT
- CHARM BRACELET | MURDER MYSTERY | MIRROR SELFIE | MOUTH GUARD
- PRIDE ROCK | ECHO PARK | DELTA AIRLINES | HEX KEY
Today’s NYT Connections hints
- 🟡 Yellow: Four entries that can also be words for spells or small magical acts — some are everyday objects too.
- 🟢 Green: Each answer begins with a word that names a collective of animals.
- 🔵 Blue: Look for words that suggest doing something again — one is a phrase, one a place, one a role and one an image.
- 🟣 Purple: The starters of these entries are also geographic features found along a river.
Today’s NYT Connections group titles
- 🟡 Yellow: STARTING WITH INCANTATIONS
- 🟢 Green: STARTING WITH ANIMAL GROUP NAMES
- 🔵 Blue: STARTING WITH SYNONYMS FOR “REPEAT”
- 🟣 Purple: STARTING WITH PARTS OF A RIVER
What are today’s NYT Connections answers?
- 🟡 Yellow (STARTING WITH INCANTATIONS): CHARM BRACELET, CURSE WORD, HEX KEY, SPELL CHECKER
- 🟢 Green (STARTING WITH ANIMAL GROUP NAMES): MURDER MYSTERY, PACK RAT, PRIDE ROCK, SCHOOL DAYS
- 🔵 Blue (STARTING WITH SYNONYMS FOR “REPEAT”): COPY EDITOR, ECHO PARK, MIRROR SELFIE, QUOTE UNQUOTE
- 🟣 Purple (STARTING WITH PARTS OF A RIVER): BANK TELLER, BED HEAD, DELTA AIRLINES, MOUTH GUARD
Today’s Connections — expert analysis
The most natural entry was the yellow set: once you spot CHARM BRACELET and CURSE WORD you quickly see HEX and SPELL as the join, and SPELL CHECKER falls into place almost immediately. Those literal-meets-figurative pairs make the incantation theme obvious and give solvers an early win.
The hardest group was the purple river-parts set. BANK, BED, DELTA and MOUTH are all common words with strong alternate senses: BANK TELLER screams finance, DELTA AIRLINES is an obvious airline, BED HEAD reads as a hair thing, and MOUTH GUARD is sports gear. Because each starter is better known in a non-geographic context, that group masqueraded as four unrelated entries and tripped up many players. The main decoys were PACK RAT (tempting you toward the hoarder idea rather than the animal “pack”), QUOTE UNQUOTE (looks like punctuation instead of the repeat sense), and DELTA AIRLINES/BANK TELLER which pull solvers into topical, non-river meanings.
Difficulty verdict: a clever mid-weight puzzle. The blue and green sets rewarded pattern-spotting (echo/copy/mirror/quote and murder/pack/pride/school), while the purple set required that last push of lateral thinking. Expect a solid challenge if you lean literal first.
Yesterday’s NYT Connections answers (Game #1096)
Quick recap of Game #1096’s groups from June 11, 2026.
- 🟡 Yellow (PARTS OF A WORKOUT ROUTINE): BALANCE, CARDIO, STRETCHING, WEIGHTS
- 🟢 Green (THINGS WITH HORNS): BRASS BAND, DEVIL, RHINO, VIKING HELMET
- 🔵 Blue (HOMOPHONES OF SUVS): BRONCHO, FORERUNNER, TROUPER, UCONN
- 🟣 Purple (PAYMENT APPS MINUS A LETTER): ELLE, PAPAL, STRIP, VENO
What is NYT Connections?
NYT Connections is a daily word-grouping puzzle in which players sort 16 words into four thematic groups of four. The categories can be literal, punny, grammatical, cultural, or a mix — and the challenge is spotting the less obvious linking sense before getting misled by common alternate meanings.
How to play NYT Connections
- Identify four words that share a common theme and select them as a group.
- Repeat until all 16 words are sorted into four groups of four.
- Watch for words with strong alternate meanings — those are often the puzzle’s misdirection.
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.
