Today's puzzle is on the case.
Find our guide to New York Times Connections answers and hints for September 18 below.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #1,195. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #1,194, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Alternatively, visit our how to play NYT Connections guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.
What is Connections
Solving Connections relies on identifying connecting categories among 16 words. Each category's difficulty level is represented by a color; yellow is the easiest grouping, and purple is the most challenging. Once you've made 4 mistakes in your guesses, the answers will be revealed, so hints can be helpful.
Every day, we update this article with Connections hints and tips to help you find all 4 of today's answers so you can keep your Connections streak going. And if the clues aren't enough, you'll find all four answers below, with the category titles and the correlating words.
Today's Connections answer — hints to help you solve it
Today's Connection Grid and Words
- Pillow
- Cruise
- Upper
- Step
- Flight
- Stair
- Platter
- Landing
- Round
- Stage
- Takeoff
- Medley
- Brieft
- Boarding
- Sampler
- Phase
We have the Connections categories below, but here's a hint without the actual titles. Try this out:
- 🟨 Yellow: Part
- 🟩 Green: Cornucopia
- 🟦 Blue: Airport
- 🟪 Purple: On the
Today's Connections Group Hints
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Assortments of food/drink
- 🟩 Green: Assortments of food/drink
- 🟦 Blue: Parts of a flight
- 🟪 Purple: ____Case
These hints should get you at least some of the way towards finding today's Connections answers. If not, then you can read on for bigger clues; or, if you just want to know the answer, then scroll down further.
Today's Connections answers
The Connections answers on September 18 for puzzle #1,195 are easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2 out of 5.
- 🟨 Segment of a process: Phase, round, stage, step
- 🟩 Assortments of food/drink: Flight, medley, platter, sampler
- 🟦 Parts of a flight: Boarding, cruise, landing, takeoff
- 🟪 ____Case: Brief, pillow, stair, upper
I was one off the reverse rainbow today, but I've been spotting the blue set for my first grouping pretty consistently lately.
Today was no different with boarding, cruise, landing and takeoff.
Pillow is how I found the cases, followed by brief, upper and then stair for the purple set.
Flight was my way into the green set, which got me to sampler platter and medley.
Finally, the final four words were parts of the process: phase, round, stage and step.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Elasticity: Bounce, flexibility, give, spring
- 🟩 Things that are underground: Mine shaft, sewer line, subway station, well
- 🟦 Hugh Jackman movies, with "the": Fountain, prestige, sheep detectives, wolverine
- 🟪 Love ____: Handles, language, tap, triangle
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1,194 which had a difficulty rating of 2.3 out of 5.
I almost immediately spotted the movies starting with The Prestige and The Fountain, The Sheep Detectives confirmed it and then I just had to find The Wolverine.
I was thinking underground tubes when I grabbed mine shaft, sewer line, and subway station. I didn't immediately hit on well but we got there.
The springy stuff stuck out right away, so I assumed it was yellow and popped in handles, language, tap and triangle without really considering the love aspect.
This left bounce, flexibility, give and spring as my final four.
