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Today's puzzle is trickier than you might expect given the rating.
Find our guide to New York Times Connections answers and hints for June 1 below.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #1,086. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #1,085, 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
- Wedding
- Menagerie
- Onion
- Newspaper
- Ceiling
- Slippers
- Tree
- Cat
- Door
- Tattoo
- Pipe
- Wall
- Key
- Window
- Streetcar
- Robe
We have the Connections categories below but here's a hint without the actual titles. Try this out:
- 🟨 Yellow: The ___ brick road
- 🟩 Green: 8-ball
- 🟦 Blue: A pirate's life
- 🟪 Purple: Trees plus a letter
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: Room features
- 🟩 Green: Old-timey lounging accessories
- 🟦 Blue: Subjects in Tennessee Williams titles
- 🟪 Purple: ___ ring
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 June 1 for puzzle #1,086 are a bit harder than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 3 out of 5.
- 🟨 Room features: Ceiling, door, wall, window
- 🟩 Old-timey lounging accessories: Newspaper, pipe, robe, slippers
- 🟦 Subjects in Tennessee Williams titles: Cat, menagerie, streetcar, tattoo
- 🟪 ___ ring: Key, onion, tree, wedding
I went down the line today starting with the only one that initially jumped out at me, yellow, with ceiling, door, wall, window.
Pipe, robe, and slippers brought to mind the kind of old-timey caricature you might see on a box of tea or "Tom and Jerry" cartoon, but it took me a second to complete the picture with newspaper for green.
After that, I tapped into what I remembered from undergrad English and polished off the blue category with cat, menagerie, streetcar, and tattoo.
That left purple as today's rote fill with key, onion, tree, and wedding.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Things that are yellow: Butter, pikachu, rubber duck, school bus
- 🟩 Billiard terms: Break, cue, pocket, rack
- 🟦 Slang for a sailor: Jack, salt, sea dog, tar
- 🟪 Kinds of wood plus 's': Sash, soak, spine, steak
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1,085, which had a difficulty rating of 2 out of 5.
I kicked off today's puzzle with the green category after recognizing pocket and cue likely had to do with billiards. I looked around for other similar words and got rack and break.
Pikachu was really throwing me, but then I realized I was thinking too hard about it. Butter, rubber duck, and school bus rounded out an extra yellow yellow category today.
I grew up in a huge navy town, so blue wasn't too hard to spot with a bunch of slang for sailors like jack, salt, sea dog, and tar (the only one I hadn't heard of).
That left purple as today's rote fill with sash, soak, spine, and steak.
