Here are all four answers for the NYT Connections puzzle #1144 on July 29, 2026.
Yellow – Fasteners: NAIL, RIVET, SCREW, STAPLE
Green – Nondescript: BASIC, MID, PLAIN, VANILLA
Blue – Units of Wisdom: GEM, NUGGET, PEARL, WORD
Purple – ___ Boards in a Classroom: BLACK, CHALK, CORK, WHITE
Hints are below for each group before the full breakdown.
Yellow hint: Four things that hold materials together, whether wood, metal, or paper. All of them work as verbs too.
Green hint: Four words meaning dull, unremarkable, or lacking distinction. One of them is a popular ice cream flavor.
Blue hint: Four informal words for a small, valuable piece of information or advice. One of them is the most basic unit of language.
Purple hint: Each word in this group becomes a type of classroom writing surface when BOARD is added after it.
Yellow – Fasteners: NAIL, RIVET, SCREW, STAPLE
The misdirection runs deep here. NAIL, SCREW, and STAPLE all carry common verb meanings separate from their fastener sense, and RIVET reads primarily as the verb meaning to hold someone’s attention. Once the fastener frame clicks, all four fall into place, but reaching that frame takes a moment. STAPLE in particular pulls double duty as both a physical fastener and a pantry staple, which is likely why it sits in yellow rather than a harder group.
Green – Nondescript: BASIC, MID, PLAIN, VANILLA
VANILLA is the standout misdirection word: it reads as a flavor before it reads as a synonym for ordinary. The slang usage, where vanilla describes something lacking in excitement or edge, has been mainstream since at least the 1970s. MID is the newest arrival in this semantic neighborhood, originating in internet slang around the mid-2010s as shorthand for mediocre. BASIC and PLAIN are more obvious once the category title clicks, but VANILLA will have cost many solvers a mistake.
Blue – Units of Wisdom: GEM, NUGGET, PEARL, WORD
GEM, NUGGET, and PEARL all carry a secondary meaning as a small piece of valuable information: a gem of advice, a nugget of truth, a pearl of wisdom. WORD is the one solvers sometimes resist. In the phrase a word of wisdom or a word to the wise, WORD fits the category exactly. The blue title is a precise description of how all four words function in figurative English, not just a loose theme.
Purple – ___ Boards in a Classroom: BLACK, CHALK, CORK, WHITE
Each word in the purple group becomes a classroom writing surface with BOARD added: BLACKBOARD, CHALKBOARD, CORKBOARD, WHITEBOARD. The difficulty is that BLACK, CHALK, CORK, and WHITE each carry a dozen other associations. BLACK and WHITE together look like a color pair. CHALK reads as a material. CORK reads as a wine stopper or an Irish city. The classroom frame is the key that unlocks all four, and it rarely arrives until at least two other groups have been cleared from the grid.
Yesterday’s NYT Connections #1143 hid palindromic names inside ANNAPOLIS, BOBSLED, EVEREST, and OTTOMAN and ranked above average in difficulty. Connections #1142 on July 27 used STICK as its central trap word across multiple potential groups. Puzzle #1145 will be available at midnight on July 30, 2026.
