The NYT Connections puzzle, a daily word game developed by The New York Times, challenges players to find hidden connections between words and group them into sets of four. Launched on June 12, 2023, it has become the second-most-played game on the platform, following Wordle. This article provides hints and answers for the August 26, 2025, puzzle to assist players. Connections, created by Wyna Liu, associate puzzle editor at The New York Times, presents sixteen words that must be sorted into categories of varying difficulty. The game offers an engaging experience for vocabulary enthusiasts, with players sharing their successes and failures on social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter).
Today’s hints include: Yellow – Notable personal identifiers on someone’s appearance; Green – Insulting terms for an unpleasant person; Blue – Verbs meaning to annoy or harass repeatedly; Purple – Common modifiers that form compounds with “stool.”
The puzzle categories for August 26, 2025 are: Yellow – DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS; Green – A REAL JERK; Blue – PESTER; Purple – WORDS BEFORE “STOOL.”
The answers for August 26, 2025 are:
Yellow – DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: MOLE, PIERCING, SCAR, TATTOO
Green – A REAL JERK: CREEP, HEEL, RAT, SKUNK
Blue – PESTER: BADGER, BUG, HARRY, RIDE
Purple – _ _ _ CALL: WORDS BEFORE “STOOL”: BAR, FOOT, STEP, TOAD
To play Connections, players receive a grid of words and must identify the hidden connections. Success requires the application of vocabulary and problem-solving skills. The game provides hints, tracks progress, and allows players to challenge others. A new puzzle is released daily at midnight on the NYT website or app. The aim is to organize sixteen words into four groups based on their connections, which can be synonyms, antonyms, or related word families. The difficulty progresses from Yellow (easiest) to Purple (hardest), with the purple category often incorporating wordplay. Incorrect guesses result in lost lives, and the game ends after four mistakes.
