The NYT Connections answers for Tuesday, August 11, 2026 are below. Puzzle #1157 features one of the sharpest purple categories in recent memory: four words that sound exactly like facial features but are spelled entirely differently. All four groups and their full word lists follow, with three hints first for players still solving.
NYT Connections Hints – August 11, 2026
Hint 1 (Yellow): All four words mean you are finished, out of options, or heading toward a bad outcome.
Hint 2 (Green): These four words are all channels you would find on a basic cable package, not streaming services.
Hint 3 (Blue): Say these four words in the right order and you will hear something familiar from a bidding room.
Hint 4 (Purple): Each of these four words is a homophone of a part of the human face.
NYT Connections #1157 Answers – August 11, 2026
Yellow – DOOMED: DONE, SUNK, THROUGH, TOAST
Green – BASIC CABLE CHANNELS: BET, BRAVO, HISTORY, USA
Blue – WORDS IN AN AUCTIONEER’S CHANT: GOING, ONCE, SOLD, TWICE
Purple – HOMOPHONES OF FACIAL FEATURES: AYE (eye), HARE (hair), KNOWS (nose), TUNG (tongue)
Today’s Trickiest Group
The purple category is today’s most sophisticated trap. AYE, HARE, KNOWS, and TUNG each sound exactly like a facial feature when spoken aloud, but none shares its spelling with the body part it references. TUNG is the word most likely to derail solvers: it is a real word (a tree whose seed oil is used in wood finishing), but its relevance here is purely phonetic. Players who hear the connection immediately will clear the board; those who read the words on the screen and miss the sound layer will struggle.
The green group carries the session’s biggest misdirection risk. BET looks like a gambling verb; BRAVO reads as an exclamation; HISTORY suggests a school subject; USA points to a country. All four are also basic cable channels, which is the connection the puzzle is testing. Players who sort by word meaning rather than word associations will hit a false wall here before reconsidering.
The blue auctioneer’s chant is the session’s most satisfying solve once the penny drops: GOING, GOING, ONCE, TWICE, SOLD is the phrase, with GOING appearing twice in practice but only once in today’s grid. The yellow DOOMED group, meanwhile, gathers four idioms for being finished – DONE, SUNK, THROUGH, and TOAST – that will seem obvious in hindsight but may scatter across other categories on a first pass.
For yesterday’s puzzle, see the NYT Connections answers for August 10, 2026 (#1156), which featured the hidden BILL and WILL thread running through all four category names.
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