The New York Times Connections game challenges players to categorize 16 words into four distinct groups based on shared themes, a daily puzzle format managed by the Times Games division. For the puzzle dated July 19, 2026, the groupings required players to identify connections ranging from technical components to idiomatic phrases.
Solving the July 19, 2026, Connections Puzzle
The puzzle featured four categories of varying difficulty, as categorized by the official NYT Connections platform. Players progress through these categories, which are color-coded to indicate complexity.
- Yellow Group (Circuit components): The words in this category are breaker, fuse, relay, and switch.
- Green Group (Digital coupling verbs): This category includes connect, join, pair, and sync.
- Blue Group (Things a toilet does): This group consists of drain, flush, refill, and swirl.
- Purple Group (____ face expressions): The final category is completed by the words game, long, poker, and straight. Each of these words can precede the word "face" to form common idiomatic expressions.
Strategy and Tracking for Players
The New York Times provides a Connections Bot to assist players in evaluating their performance. Similar to the analysis tools available for Wordle, this feature provides a numeric score and feedback after a player has completed the puzzle.
For registered users, the Times Games section tracks long-term statistics. This includes:
- Total number of puzzles completed.
- Overall win rate.
- Frequency of achieving a "perfect score."
- Current and historical win streaks.