Unlock the best NYT Connections and Daily word games insights, answers, strategies, and more for January 25, 2026 — including NYT Connections #959, Wordle #1681, NYT Connections Sports Edition #489, and Pips gameplay. If you’re trying to beat the clock and master these brain games, you’re in the right place.
Whether you’re new to daily puzzles or a seasoned solver, this guide gives you clear puzzle hints, game solutions, and expert tips to power through today’s challenges.
What Is NYT Connections?
NYT Connections is one of the most popular daily word games from NYT Games, created to test your ability to find common threads between words. It was developed by Wyna Liu (Associate Puzzle Editor) and quickly grew a cult following thanks to its clever design.
Each day at the midnight reset, you get a unique 4×4 grid of 16 words. Your mission: group them into four sets of four words that share a common theme. Sounds easy? Not always — themes can be tricksy, and one word might seem like it fits in more than one place!
Every group gets a color — yellow, green, blue, purple — from easiest (yellow) to hardest (purple). There’s also a mistakes limit, so puzzle hints can be lifesavers.
Today’s NYT Connections Puzzle (#959) — Hints & Answers (January 25, 2026)
Hints for Today’s Connections Categories
Here’s how each category connects — without giving everything away at once:
- 🟨 Yellow – Act as a backup
- 🟩 Green – PC keyboard keys
- 🟦 Blue – Pasta shapes
- 🟪 Purple – Suffixes
These hints aim to steer you toward groupings based on function or meaning.
NYT Connections Categories & Answers
If you’re ready for the full answer key, here it is in an easy table format:
| Category | Theme | Answers |
| 🟨 Yellow | Act as a backup | COVER, FILL IN, SUB, TEMP |
| 🟩 Green | PC Keyboard Keys | ALT, ENTER, MENU, WINDOWS |
| 🟦 Blue | Pasta Shapes | BOWTIE, RIBBON, SHELL, TUBE |
| 🟪 Purple | Suffixes | ATE, DOM, HOOD, SHIP |
🧠 Explanation: These categories check a range of word grouping skills — from synonyms and functions to parts of speech.
How to Play NYT Connections Strategy
Even if you’ve got answers, understanding how these puzzles work can level you up fast:
- Start with easy groups (yellow and green). These often have clearer themes.
- Use context clues — “keyboard keys” is something many players can visualize, making green easier to spot.
- Save tricky ones for last — suffixes and high-level categories can hide until other groups are filled.
- Shuffle the board if you’re lost — sometimes spatial rearrangement reveals connections.
Miss more than four times and the puzzle ends, so a methodical approach wins every time.
Wordle Today – Hints & Answer (January 25, 2026)
One of the crown jewels of daily word games is Wordle, created by Josh Wardle and now hosted by the New York Times. You guess a five-letter word in six tries using color feedback — green (right place), yellow (right letter, wrong place), and gray (not in answer).
Today’s Wordle Hints
Today’s puzzle — Wordle #1681 — features:
- A five-letter word
- One vowel and four consonants
- Double letters
- Starts with S
- Could mean a confident walk or a structural rod/bar
Wordle Answer Today
STRUT
Meaning: To walk with confidence or swagger.
NYT Connections Sports Edition – Hints & Answers
The NYT Connections Sports Edition adds a sports twist to the classic word-group challenge, often in partnership with The Athletic. Each group revolves around sports themes, players, teams, terms, or statistics.
Sports Edition Categories
For January 25, 2026, here are the categories:
- Yellow: Disappointment
- Green: Sports with “-ing”
- Blue: Hall of Fame NHL Defensemen
- Purple: ____ Star(s)
Sports Edition Answers
| Category | Answers |
| Disappointment | BUST, DUD, FAILURE, FLOP |
| Sports with “-ing” | BOWL, BOX, CURL, SURF |
| Hall of Fame NHL Defensemen | BOURQUE, COFFEY, LEETCH, ORR |
| ____ Star(s) | ALL, CHICAGO, DALLAS, SUPER |
These groupings link terms by shared context — from sports actions and team stars to league legacies.
Pips Hints & Answers (January 25, 2026)
Pips is a logic-based twist on word and symbol puzzles that blends numerical logic with spatial grouping. In Easy, Medium, and Hard modes, you place domino tiles in color-coded grids to satisfy conditions like Equal, Not Equal, Less Than, or Greater Than.
Though exact answers aren’t always published officially, community results (e.g., timing and difficulty breakdowns) show this puzzle saw varying completion times across users on January 25 — from sub-minute clears in Easy to several-minute sessions in Hard.
Rather than a strict answer key, the takeaway is to:
- Start with constraints you know
- Use elimination strategically
- Map domino values carefully against conditions
This approach works across difficulties.
Pro Tips for Daily Word Game Masters
Want to step up your daily puzzle prowess? Here’s how to improve across NYT Connections, Wordle, Pips, and other brain games like Sudoku, Mahjong, Crossword, Squabble, Dordle, and Quordle:
- Play consistently — muscle memory helps pattern recognition.
- Learn category logic — daily reset puzzles often reuse concept types.
- Track clues over time — you’ll start to spot recurring themes faster.
- Leverage starter word lists in Wordle that contain common letters.
- Balance speed with accuracy — rushing leads to the mistakes limit fast.
Wrap-Up
We’ve packed today’s article with everything you need to beat the January 25, 2026 lineup of word challenges — from NYT Connections #959 and Wordle #1681 (STRUT) to Sports Edition and Pips gameplay.
Use this guide not just to get the answers, but to understand how puzzle creators like Wyna Liu, the Mashable Team, and the NYT Games team design daily word games to be fun, clever, and rewarding.
