Entertainment

Connections Puzzle #1,193 Solved: Wednesday, September 16 Hints and Full Answer

By Tim Mulkerin

Players looking for help with the New York Times Connections puzzle for Wednesday, September 16, 2026 can find hints and the complete solution here. This is puzzle #1,193, and the breakdown below explains each category along with tips for solving similar wordplay-based puzzles in the future.

All four categories in this edition were centered on wordplay. General hints included: the yellow group featured words containing hidden materials; the green group contained hidden references to money; the blue group consisted of names; and the purple group contained hidden food items.

Additional clues noted that removing the letter O from BORAT produces the word BRAT, that LATIN ends with the letters T-I-N, and that WADSWORTH is part of the full name of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The four categories and their answers were as follows:

Yellow category, themed 'Ending in Metal Elements': LATIN, LONG JOHN SILVER, MARIGOLD, and STEAM IRON. These words end with the names of metals — tin, silver, gold, and iron, respectively.

Green category, themed 'Starting With U.S. Coins': DIMENSION, NICKELODEON, PENNYWISE, and QUARTERBACK. Each word begins with the name of an American coin — dime, nickel, penny, and quarter.

Blue category, themed 'Poets' Middle Names': BARRETT, CARLOS, ST. VINCENT, and WADSWORTH. These correspond to poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Carlos Williams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Purple category, themed 'Sausages Plus a Letter': BORAT, CLINK, FRANK-N-FURTER, and WIDENER. Each word is a sausage type with an extra letter added — brat, link, frankfurter, and wiener.

The puzzle proved challenging in part because several words appeared to overlap with unrelated themes. For instance, FRANK-N-FURTER and PENNYWISE both evoke clown-like pop culture figures, and BORAT is also a well-known movie character, which could mislead solvers into grouping them together incorrectly. Similarly, ST. VINCENT is recognizable as a musician's stage name, adding another layer of misdirection before the poets' middle names category became clear.

For those unfamiliar with the game, Connections is played on a 16-tile board where participants must identify four groups of four related words or phrases. Categories range in difficulty from yellow, the easiest, to purple, the most difficult, with green and blue falling in between. Selecting an incorrect group of four counts as a mistake, and the game ends after four mistakes are made.

A key strategy for success involves watching for overlapping categories designed to mislead players — for example, a puzzle might seem to include six breakfast-related words, but some of those words could actually belong to entirely different categories, such as painters' surnames or things that come in a dozen. Players are advised not to submit a guess until they are confident all four words share the same specific connection, and to pay close attention to any words that seem to have no obvious link to the rest of the board, as these can offer clues to hidden categories.

Check back for hints and solutions to future puzzles.