The NYT Connections answers for September 26, 2026, are here for puzzle #1203.
If you just need the answers, scroll past the hints below. All four groups are revealed in full, with the colour coding and theme explanations.
Hints for NYT Connections #1203 – September 26, 2026
Hint 1 (Yellow – easiest): These are all things you might use to freshen your breath.
Hint 2 (Green): Think about what happens when you drop off a dress shirt at the dry cleaner or laundry.
Hint 3 (Blue): Look closely at a piece of wood. These are all things you might see in the grain or structure.
Hint 4 (Purple – hardest): All four words can follow the word “cool” to make a common phrase or compound word.
NYT Connections Answers – September 26, 2026
Yellow – Breath Fresheners: GUM, MINT, MOUTHWASH, SPRAY
Green – Dress Shirt at the Laundry: FOLD, PRESS, STARCH, WASH
Blue – Features of Wood: BURL, GRAIN, KNOTS, RINGS
Purple – “Cool ___”: BEANS, CAT, CUCUMBER, CUSTOMER
Today’s Difficulty Breakdown
The Yellow group (Breath Fresheners) was the most approachable entry point – GUM, MINT, MOUTHWASH, and SPRAY are all firmly in the same category with little ambiguity. Green required slightly more thought: FOLD, PRESS, STARCH, and WASH all relate to laundering a dress shirt, though WASH could plausibly fit elsewhere.
Blue (Features of Wood) was where today’s puzzle sharpened. BURL and RINGS are solidly in that category, but GRAIN and KNOTS have enough everyday usage that solvers who didn’t anchor on the wood theme first may have scattered them into other groups.
Purple was today’s trickiest group. COOL BEANS, COOL CAT, COOL AS A CUCUMBER, and COOL CUSTOMER are all idioms or expressions, but they require you to recognise the “Cool ___” construction across very different register – slang, animal, vegetable, and social type. A satisfying reveal once it clicks.
If you solved all four without a mistake today, that’s a clean board. Come back tomorrow for the next puzzle.
For more puzzle answers today, check out the Wordle answer for September 26, yesterday’s NYT Connections #1202 answers, and the NYT Strands #936 hints and answer.
