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Today’s NYT Connections puzzle has another one of those purple categories that makes you hunt out hidden words buried in the grid words. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.
The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.
Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time
Hints for today’s Connections groups
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Yellow group hint: Very fast.
Green group hint: Think Chinese cuisine.
Blue group hint: Turn pages fast.
Purple group hint: Hidden word for a failure.
Answers for today’s Connections groups
Yellow group: Zoom.
Green group: Sauces in Chinese cuisine.
Blue group: Riffle (through).
Purple group: Starting with synonyms for “dud.”
Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words
What are today’s Connections answers?
The completed NYT Connections puzzle for Feb. 17, 2026.
The yellow words in today’s Connections
The theme is zoom. The four answers are dart, flash, speed and zip.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is sauces in Chinese cuisine. The four answers are hoisin, oyster, plum and soy.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is riffle (through). The four answers are slip, leaf, skim amd thumb.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is starting with synonyms for “dud.” The four answers are Bombay (bomb), bustle (bust), floppy (flop) and missus (miss).
