NYT Connections answers for Tuesday, July 21, 2026 (puzzle #1136) are below. The four groups cover clothing necklines, software installs, musical theater structure, and a wordplay category built around a shared prefix.
Yellow – Kinds of Tops: CROP, HALTER, TANK, TUBE
Green – Software Downloads: APP, DRIVER, EXTENSION, PLUGIN
Blue – Elements of a Musical: BOOK, LYRICS, MUSIC, ORCHESTRATION
Purple – Tele_____: GRAM, KINESIS, PROMPTER, VISION
Yellow is Tuesday’s entry-level group. CROP, HALTER, TANK, and TUBE are all styles of tops – each one defined by what happens at the neckline or shoulder. TANK is the most likely early confusion: it is also a military vehicle, a verb, and a verb meaning to fail badly. Solvers who tested it in the Green software category first may have lost a guess. TUBE, meanwhile, makes a convincing case for the Purple TELE- category – TUBE is not a TELE- word, but the association with television and YouTube is hard to shake on first read.
Green rewards solvers who think in computing terms. APP, DRIVER, EXTENSION, and PLUGIN are all things a user downloads or installs to extend a device’s functionality. DRIVER is the group’s most deceptive entry – it belongs to software (a hardware driver for a printer or graphics card) but reads immediately as a person behind the wheel. EXTENSION also has strong non-software meanings: a hair extension, a cord extension, a deadline extension. Arriving at the software frame requires setting those readings aside deliberately.
Blue is the puzzle’s most culturally specific group. In musical theater, a production is built from four components: the BOOK (the spoken script and dramatic structure, also called the libretto), the LYRICS (the sung words), the MUSIC (the composed score), and the ORCHESTRATION (the arrangement for the pit orchestra). BOOK is the group’s stealth word – it reads as a noun for something you read, a verb for making a reservation, or a category of things on a shelf. Solvers unfamiliar with the term “the book” as musical theater jargon are likely to place it last.
Purple is Tuesday’s hardest category and the most satisfying to crack. GRAM, KINESIS, PROMPTER, and VISION each complete the prefix TELE-: TELEGRAM (a sent message), TELEKINESIS (the supposed ability to move objects with the mind), TELEPROMPTER (the scrolling script device used by broadcasters), and TELEVISION. The category resists pattern-matching because none of the four words obviously belong together as standalone nouns. GRAM is a unit of mass. KINESIS is a biology term for movement. VISION is a sensory faculty. The TELE- connection only becomes visible once a solver abandons surface meanings entirely.
For the rest of today’s puzzle lineup, the Wordle #1858 answer for July 21 and yesterday’s NYT Strands #869 are also available.
