Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is a beautifully deceptive one and if you found yourself staring at the grid wondering how CABOOSE, HOT, and YELLOW could ever belong together, you are absolutely not alone. Thursday puzzles tend to punch up in difficulty, and Puzzle #1075 delivers on that tradition with at least two categories that hide behind completely unexpected associations.
The sweet-sounding words like PEACH, PUMPKIN, and HONEY make the grid feel cozy at first glance. But scan deeper and you’ll spot DEUCE, FORTY, and LOVE lurking a set that has nothing to do with romance or card games and everything to do with the lawn at Wimbledon. Then there’s the Purple category, which is the real kicker today: it’s a slang-meets-compound-word trap that will make you smack your forehead once you see it.
Here are all 16 words on today’s board:
Advantage
Caboose
Can
Chess
Colonel
Deuce
Forty
Honey
Hot
Love
Moon
Peach
Pecan
Pumpkin
Shoofly
Yellow
General hints for today’s categories
Not ready to commit to a full answer yet? Here’s a high-level nudge for each of the four groups directional enough to get the gears turning, without naming the actual category.
| Tier | Vibe / direction |
| Yellow | Think grandma’s kitchen windowsill. Four classic American pie fillings including one old-school Pennsylvania Dutch specialty that’s made a big culinary comeback. |
| Green | A prefix puzzle. One specific sweet word goes in front of all four answers to form familiar compound words, titles, and phrases. Say it out loud your ear will catch it faster than your eyes. |
| Blue | This sport doesn’t count like other sports. Its scoring vocabulary is completely unique and one of the four words in this group literally means zero. |
| Purple | One word goes after each answer to form something you’d find in a bakery or hear in slang. The connection is a body part reference hiding in plain sight. This is the one that’ll get you. |
Progressive category clues
Still stuck? Here’s a targeted, tiered hint for each color group. These are deliberately more specific, read only the one you need.
Yellow category hint
Kinds of pie
All four words name classic baked pie varieties. Three of them are familiar Thanksgiving staples; the fourth, SHOOFLY, is a molasses-based pie with roots in Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. If you’ve never heard of it, you’ll remember it now. PEACH, PECAN, and PUMPKIN round out the group; none of them belong anywhere else in the grid.
Green category hint
Words that follow “Honey”
Place the word “Honey” directly in front of each of these four answers and you’ll get a compound word or familiar phrase: Honeymoon, Honeybee… wait, no think titles, ranks, and containers. One is what newlyweds take. One is a military officer’s rank. And One is a board game. And Other One is a very specific kind of tin. Note that “Honey” comes first as a prefix; these are words that follow “Honey”, not precede it.
Blue category hint
Tennis scoring terms
If you’ve ever watched a Grand Slam match and been confused by the announcer, this category is the explanation. Tennis scores don’t go 1–2–3 they go 15, 30, FORTY. A tie at 40-all is called DEUCE. Win the next point from deuce and you hold ADVANTAGE. And the bizarre one: the score of zero in tennis is called LOVE. Don’t let “LOVE” fool you into another category; it’s all sport here.
Purple category hint
___ Buns
Add the word “Buns” after each answer and something clicks: Honey Buns, Hot Cross Buns, Yellow Buns… and yes, Caboose because “caboose” is a well-known slang term for your backside, also called your buns. This category is half bakery, half body-part humor. The word HONEY is the biggest trap here. It looks like a pie category word, but it belongs right here with the buns.
NYT Connections answers today Puzzle #1075 (May 21, 2026)
Full spoilers directly below scroll only when you’re completely ready for the solutions.
Yellow
Kinds of pie
Pecan, Pumpkin, Shoofly, Peach
Green
Words that follow “Honey” (Honey ___)
Can, Chess, Colonel, Moon
Blue
Tennis scoring terms
Advantage, Deuce, Forty, Love
Purple
___ Buns
Caboose, Honey, Hot, Yellow
Strategy and wrap-up
The two biggest traps in today’s puzzle were HONEY and CHESS. HONEY looks like a pie flavor or a sweet standalone word, but it slots into the Purple “Buns” category (Honey Buns). CHESS may have sent you toward board games, but “Honey Chess” , a type of chess pie, connects it firmly to the Green “Honey ___” group.
The play here was to lock in the Blue tennis group first ADVANTAGE, DEUCE, FORTY, LOVE are unambiguous once you identify the theme. With those four gone, the remaining 12 words become significantly easier to sort, and the HONEY misdirect loses most of its power.
How to play NYT Connections
New to the game or brushing up before tomorrow? Here’s the quick rundown on how Connections works.
- You’re shown a 4×4 grid of 16 words. Your goal is to group them into four sets of four, where every word in a set shares a common theme.
- Tap or click four words you think belong together, then hit “Submit.” If you’re right, the group disappears and reveals its color and category name.
- Colors indicate difficulty: Yellow is easiest, Green is medium, Blue is harder, and Purple is the trickiest, often involving wordplay, slang, or unexpected connections.
- You get four mistakes in total. Use them carefully: one wrong guess can burn a lifeline and send you spiraling.
- If you’re unsure between two groups, start with the one you’re most confident about. Removing known words makes the remaining grid easier to parse.
A new puzzle drops every day at midnight in your local time zone. You can play on the NYT Games site or app, and your streak carries over if you’re logged in.
Frequently asked questions
The puzzle resets at midnight local time every day, so players in different time zones get access at different absolute times. Thursday’s Puzzle #1075 became available at midnight on May 21, 2026.
You’re allowed four incorrect guesses before the game ends. Each wrong submission costs one of the four colored mistake dots shown below the grid, so every guess matters especially on trickier Purple-difficulty days like today.
Purple is consistently the hardest category in each puzzle. It typically involves wordplay, pop culture deep cuts, unexpected compound words, or slang meanings. In Puzzle #1075, the Purple category was “___ Buns” with CABOOSE as the slang-based wildcard that catches most players off guard.
Yes there’s a Shuffle button at the bottom of the grid that randomly rearranges the 16 words. Many experienced players shuffle multiple times before starting, because a fresh visual layout can help reveal groupings that aren’t obvious in the default arrangement.
NYT Connections is part of the New York Times Games suite. It’s accessible free via the NYT website or app, though a NYT Games subscription unlocks an archive of past puzzles and removes ads for a cleaner experience.
Without question, the Purple “___ Buns” category was the toughest in Puzzle #1075. The combination of a slang word (CABOOSE), a food misdirect (HONEY), and a nursery-rhyme callback (HOT, as in Hot Cross Buns) made it a three-layered trap that even experienced players struggled to parse before their fourth guess.
Looking for Yesterday’s Answers? If you are still working through the previous board or want to check your past stats, head over to our comprehensive guide for NYT Connections Hints Today to review the previous solutions and keep your daily winning streak alive!
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