- Today’s puzzle (July 23, 2026) leans heavily into organizational structures and linguistic prefixes.
- The Purple category is particularly deceptive, utilizing a “common word connection” that bridges 20th-century snacks with modern academic settings.
- NYT’s new 2026 “Smart Hint” feature in the Games app is currently disabled for this specific grid to preserve difficulty.
Welcome to your daily strategy guide for the New York Times Connections puzzle. Today is July 23, 2026, and if you are feeling a sense of deja vu, you aren’t alone. After the relatively straightforward grids we saw earlier this week, the puzzle designers have implemented a classic “misdirection” layout that utilizes the new haptic feedback features of the 2026 mobile interface to keep you on your toes.
Today’s grid actively resists the first-glance categorization we usually rely on. If you’re seeing words that look like they belong in a software suite or a kitchen, tread carefully—the NYT has a habit of splitting those “obvious” pairs across three different categories.
- The Undo Stack: Remember that since the early 2026 update, you can view your previous three incorrect guesses by long-pressing the “History” icon.
- Interface Context: If you are playing on the NYT Vision Pro overlay, ensure your focus-tracking is calibrated; several readers reported accidental “Submits” during yesterday’s puzzle.
- Difficulty Curve: Today’s puzzle is rated a 4/5 on the “Sneaky” scale.
Hints for the July 23, 2026 Groups
If you aren’t ready for the full spoilers yet, use these thematic hints to nudge your brain in the right direction. We have organized them from the most straightforward to the most abstract.
- Yellow Group (Easiest): These are the structural pillars of a physical or digital manuscript. If you were browsing a library, you’d find these in almost every volume.
- Green Group (Medium): Think of scale. These terms are used to denote magnitude, specifically in the realms of data and science.
- Blue Group (Tricky): This group is all about shape. Specifically, items you might find in a pantry that are named after what they look like.
- Purple Group (Toughest): This is a classic “Word that follows ____” category. The missing word is a short, punchy term that applies to food, music, and surprise evaluations.
Connections Groups Explained
The July 23rd puzzle relies on your ability to separate units of measurement from units of organization. Many players will likely try to group “Chapter” and “Giga” under a general “Big” category, but that is a trap designed to drain your lives.
| Category Color | Thematic Connection | Included Words |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Book Sections | CHAPTER, INDEX, PREFACE, GLOSSARY |
| Green | Metric Prefixes | MEGA, NANO, GIGA, MICRO |
| Blue | Pasta Shapes | SHELL, BOWTIE, PENNE, ZITI |
| Purple | Words Following “POP” | CORN, TART, CULTURE, QUIZ |
How to Solve Today’s Tricky Spots
The main hurdle today was the overlap between NANO and MICRO (Green) and the potential for CORN (Purple) to be grouped with food items. However, since there weren’t three other grain-based items, CORN had to find a home elsewhere.
The Blue Group (Pasta Shapes) also presented a challenge for those using the 2026 “Visual Aid” accessibility setting, as the word “SHELL” was intentionally styled in the grid to look like a maritime object. Don’t be fooled—stick to the linguistic roots.
“The July 23rd grid is a masterclass in lexical ambiguity. By placing ‘CULTURE’ and ‘INDEX’ in the same field, we challenge the player to separate sociological concepts from editorial ones.”
— NYT Games Editorial Team, Internal Memo, July 2026
Looking for Yesterday’s Results?
If you missed the puzzle from July 22, 2026, you can access the archived solution via the “Past Puzzles” tab in your NYT Games dashboard. Yesterday’s categories focused on “Types of Winds” and “Synonyms for Annoy,” which many found significantly easier than today’s prefix-heavy challenge.
Check back tomorrow for the July 24 hints. We anticipate a return to more tech-centric themes as the NYT celebrates the anniversary of the 2025 AI Integration Act.
