Today’s Connections puzzle is filled with red herrings. If you can’t decide whether you should choose actors or ballers, we don’t blame you. To make your choice easier, we have some hints for you. These hints will point you in the right direction without giving away any spoilers. If you just want the answers, you can scroll to the bottom of the page. So, without further ado, here are all the hints, clues, and answers to today’s NYT Connections (#1,069, May 15, 2026).
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In This Article
What is Connections?
Connections is the New York Times’ most popular word game after Wordle. It presents you with 16 words in a 4×4 grid. You are supposed to spot 4 groups of 4 words with common connections. The Yellow group is the easiest to spot, followed by Green, Blue, and Purple, which is the toughest to crack. The game often has misdirections and red herrings to make it more fun. You can play it on the NYT Games app or the official NYT website.
Here’s your grid for today
- SAW
- JORDAN
- CROSS
- PITT
- ELBA
- PALM
- CIAO
- FORD
- WADE
- BIRD
- WAS
- CURRY
- JAMES
- PEEK
- ABLE
- TRAVERSE
Hints for NYT Connections (#1,069) May 15
Let’s get you started with some general, spoiler-free hints.
- 🟡Yellow Group: Making your way through a river.
- 🟢Green Group: Ballers.
- 🔵Blue Group: These words are a part of a famous phrase attributed to Napoleon.
- 🟣Purple Group: Woof Woof.
One Word Per Category (Contains Spoilers)
Can’t seem to find an in? We’ll give you one word from each category.
- 🟡Yellow Group: Cross.
- 🟢Green Group: Bird.
- 🔵Blue Group: Able.
- 🟣Purple Group: Ciao.
List of Themes (Major Spoilers)
Maybe getting to know the common themes among the words will help you spot them faster. Here are all the categories for today.
- 🟡Yellow Group: Navigate Through, As A River.
- 🟢Green Group: Multi-time NBA MVPs.
- 🔵Blue Group: Non-palindromic Words In A Famous Palindrome.
- 🟣Purple Group: Homophones Of Kinds Of Dogs, Familiarly.
Answers to NYT Connections (#1,069) Today (May 15, 2026)
Close to waving the white flag? Fine, we’ll give you the answers.
- 🟡Yellow Group: Cross, Ford, Traverse, Wade. (Navigate Through, As A River.)
An easy category to solve, but there’s an obvious red herring here. Ford, Pitt, Elba, and James could also be the last names of famous actors.
- 🟢Green Group: Bird, Curry, James, Jordan. (Multi-time NBA MVPs.)
You don’t need to have superior ball knowledge to get this one. Larry Bird, Steph Curry, LeBron James, and Michael Jordan are even familiar to those who don’t follow basketball.
- 🔵Blue Group: Able, Elba, Saw, Was. (Non-palindromic Words In A Famous Palindrome.)
“Able was I ere I saw Elba”, being the palindrome that’s often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. If you weren’t aware of the phrase, the reversed words may have sent some signals.
- 🟣Purple Group: Ciao, Palm, Peek, Pitt. (Homophones Of Kinds Of Dogs, Familiarly.)
The hardest category in today’s puzzle, fitting of the purple category status. Those who are still confused: Ciao sounds like Chow, Palm like Pom, Peek like Peke, and Pitt like Pit.
Answers to yesterday’s puzzle
- 🟡Yellow Group: Gut Feeling, Hunch, Intuition, Sixth Sense. (Premonition)
- 🟢Green Group: Do Not Disturb, Ring, Silent, Vibrate. (Cellphone Modes)
- 🔵Blue Group: Breadcrumb, Catfish, Ghost, Love Bomb. (Bad Things To Do In Modern Dating)
- 🟣Purple Group: Air Cairo, All Hallows, Arm Warmer, The Others. (Phrases Whose Second Words Include Their First Word)
NYT Connections (#1,067) May 13, 2026 Answers
- 🟡Yellow Group: Grinder, Hero, Hoagie, Sub. (Long Sandwich)
- 🟢Green Group: Argument, Basis, Cause, Grounds. (Pretext)
- 🔵Blue Group: Adjust, Crop, Filters, Markup. (Smartphone Photo Editing Options)
- 🟣Purple Group: Bean, Belly, Donut, Roll (Jelly ___)
NYT Connections (#1,066) May 12, 2026 Answers
- 🟡Yellow Group: Opus, Tome, Volume, Work. (Substantial Book)
- 🟢Green Group: Monica, Paulo, Petersburg, Salvador. (‘Saint’ Cities)
- 🔵Blue Group: Distance, Division, Johns, Weekend. (‘Long’ Things)
- 🟣Purple Group: Franci, Rando, Realm, Wonk. (Currencies Plus a Letter)
NYT Connections (#1,065) May 11, 2026 Answers
- 🟡Yellow Group: Creep, Slip, Sneak, Steal. (Move Stealthily, With ‘In’)
- 🟢Green Group: Color, Ponzi, Pyramid, Rhyme. (Kinds of Schemes)
- 🔵Blue Group: Chinatown, Knives Out, Seven, Vertigo. (Detective Movies)
- 🟣Purple Group: Elegy, Karma, Keyed, Shandy (Body Parts Surrounded By Two Letters)
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How did other solvers do today?
NYT’s early testers rated today’s Connection puzzle 2.3 out of 5. This puts it in the medium difficulty level. Let us know how you fared in the comments!
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