If today’s New York Times Connections grid has you burning through your mistakes, you are not alone. Puzzle #1166 features some heavy misdirection, with several words seemingly fitting into a food or tech theme before pulling the rug out from under you.
Below are strategic, spoiler-free hints to help you group today’s words on your own, followed by the exact categories and answers at the bottom of the page.
Today’s Connections Strategy & Commentary
Watch out for the red herrings today. At first glance, words like White and Diavola look like they belong in a general food category, while Comma and Apostrophe could easily be mistaken for writing or grammar terms.
Committing to those wrong groups early will cost you lives. We recommend looking at the less obvious categories first, especially the Purple group. It relies on word prefixes instead of literal meaning, and that will help you clear the board much faster.
Connections Hints Today: Category Clues
If you just need a nudge to get your brain moving in the right direction, here are clues for the four color-coded groups:
- 🟨 Yellow Group Hint (Easiest): Varieties of a popular baked Italian dish with various toppings.
- 🟩 Green Group Hint (Medium): Identifiers used to reference a specific person or entity.
- 🟦 Blue Group Hint (Hard): Small marks used in writing that share a similar shape or purpose.
- 🟪 Purple Group Hint (Tricky): Each word starts with the name of an animal from the Chinese zodiac.
Stuck on one word? If you have Okina, try thinking about its shape and function rather than its name. It might belong to the trickier Blue group today!
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: The full answers are listed below. If you still want to solve the grid yourself using the clues above, do not scroll down.
NYT Connections Answers Today for August 20, 2026, Thursday Puzzle #1166
Here are the completed categories and groupings for today’s puzzle:
🟨 Yellow Group: Kinds Of Pizza
- Diavola
- Hawaiian
- Meat Lovers
- White
🟩 Green Group: Kinds Of Numbers
- Atomic
- Serial
- Social Security
- Telephone
🟦 Blue Group: Similarly Shaped Typographical Marks
- Apostrophe
- Cedilla
- Comma
- Okina
🟪 Purple Group: Starting With Chinese Zodiac Animals
- Dragonfly
- Oxford
- Pigment
- Ratchet
Yesterday’s Answer
This is yesterday’s NYT Connections answer for August 19, 2026, Puzzle #1165.
🟨 Yellow Group: Piece Of Cake
- Breeze
- Cinch
- Picnic
- Snap
🟩 Green Group: Conceal
- Blanket
- Hide
- Mask
- Obscure
🟦 Blue Group: Words Before Ball In Sport Names
- Base
- Basket
- Foot
- Pickle
🟪 Purple Group: Homophones Of CGI-Animated Films
- Ants
- Cocoa
- Rheo
- Seoul
For a complete list, visit our Connections archive.
Try Today’s Other NYT Games Solutions
Keep your winning streak alive across the entire NYT Games ecosystem. Check out our daily guides for today’s other popular puzzles like Today’s Wordle and Today’s NYT Strands solutions.
Did today’s puzzle give you a perfect Reverse Rainbow or did the red herrings wipe out your board?
Share your results grid or vent about today’s trickiest crossover words in the comments below!
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