Here are all four answers for the NYT Connections puzzle #1143 on July 28, 2026.
Yellow – COMMAND: CAPTAIN, DIRECT, HEAD, LEAD
Green – HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES: EMPIRE, FUJI, GALA, HONEYCRISP
Blue – SHOE BRANDS STARTING WITH “C”: CAMPER, CLARKS, CONVERSE, CROCS
Purple – STARTING WITH PALINDROMIC NAMES: ANNAPOLIS, BOBSLED, EVEREST, OTTOMAN
Hints are below for each group if you want to work through the grid before the full reveal.
Yellow hint: These four words all mean to be in charge of, or to lead a group or operation. Think verbs of authority.
Green hint: Four varieties of a fruit sold by the bag at every grocery store. One of them shares its name with a fashion brand and a US state.
Blue hint: Footwear companies, all starting with the same letter. One is Spanish, one is American, one became a meme, and one dominates the casual sneaker market.
Purple hint: Each word in this group contains a hidden first name at its start. That name reads the same forwards and backwards.
Yellow – COMMAND: CAPTAIN, DIRECT, HEAD, LEAD
The trap here is obvious in hindsight: CAPTAIN reads as a military or sports rank, LEAD as a metal or a leash, HEAD as body anatomy. All four are verbs meaning to be in overall charge of something. The NYT Connections team leaned into the noun ambiguity to push solvers toward wrong groupings.
Green – HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES: EMPIRE, FUJI, GALA, HONEYCRISP
Four apple cultivars, dressed up with a category title that quotes the famous movie line. EMPIRE and FUJI are the misdirection: EMPIRE looks like the record label, the state, or a TV show; FUJI reads as the Japanese mountain or a film brand. Both are apples. GALA and HONEYCRISP are more recognizable grocery staples, so most solvers find the green group by anchoring on those two and pulling the others in.
Blue – SHOE BRANDS STARTING WITH “C”: CAMPER, CLARKS, CONVERSE, CROCS
CAMPER is the subtlest of the four: the Mallorca-founded Spanish footwear brand is less front-of-mind than the other three for solvers outside Europe. CROCS is culturally well-known but looks like a plural noun. CONVERSE and CLARKS are straightforward once the shoe-brand frame clicks. Blue is the group most solvers crack after spotting the alliteration in the category.
Purple – STARTING WITH PALINDROMIC NAMES: ANNAPOLIS, BOBSLED, EVEREST, OTTOMAN
Today’s purple is the puzzle’s standout, and it deserves unpacking. Each word opens with a proper name that reads identically forwards and backwards: ANNA (Annapolis), BOB (Bobsled), EVE (Everest), OTTO (Ottoman). The four palindromic names hidden inside four otherwise unrelated words make this one of the more elegant purple constructions in recent memory. Solvers who eventually spotted EVE tucked inside EVEREST say that was the click moment that unlocked the whole group.
Overall difficulty sits above average, driven almost entirely by that purple category. The other three groups are findable through standard elimination. For comparison, yesterday’s Connections #1142 used STICK as its central trap word across four different categories, while puzzle #1137 on July 22 built its hardest group around Zebra features. Puzzle #1144 will be available at midnight on July 29, 2026.
