Today's puzzle is all about putting on some shoes for some apple pickin'.
Find our guide to New York Times Connections answers and hints for July 28 below.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #1,143. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #1,141, 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
- Captain
- Clarks
- Ottoman
- Empire
- Annapolis
- Bobsled
- Camper
- Direct
- Everest
- Fuji
- Gala
- Head
- Converse
- Lead
- Honeycrisp
- Crocs
We have the Connections categories below, but here's a hint without the actual titles. Try this out:
- 🟨 Yellow: Atop
- 🟩 Green: Crunch
- 🟦 Blue: DSW
- 🟪 Purple: Who is that?
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: Command
- 🟩 Green: How do you like them apples
- 🟦 Blue: Shoe brands starting with "C'
- 🟪 Purple: Starting with palindromic ottoman
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 July 28 for puzzle #1,143 are way easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 1.7 out of 5.
- 🟨 Command: Captain, direct, head, lead
- 🟩 How do you like them apples: Empire, fuji, gala, honeycrisp
- 🟦 Shoe brands with "C": Camper, clarks, converse, crocs
- 🟪 Starting with palindromic names: Annapolis, bobsled, everest, ottoman
I saw the Apples and Shoes first but assumed the Apples were the yellow set so I popped in converse, crocs, clarks and camper for the early blue.
I continued to ignore the apples in favor of the names with Annapolis, Bobsled, Everest, and Ottoman.
Now, I finally put in the Apples of fuji, gala, honeycrisp and empire.
Which made yellow lead from the back with captain, direct, head, and lead.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Gymnastics apparatus: Beam, horse, rings, vault
- 🟩 Long tapered things: Carrot, icicle, knitting needle, stalactite
- 🟦 Kinds of shifts: Doppler, graveyard, paradigm, stick
- 🟪 Icons on a shopping site: Bell, cart, heart, magnifying glass
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1,142, which had a difficulty rating of 2.6 out of 5.
Today's puzzle definitely felt more difficult than yesterday's. I started off with clues that hand the same shape for green: carrot, icicle, knitting needle, and stalactite.
After that I thought rings and heart might have to do with video game health bars, but then I realized it was more literal than that when I spotted some gym equipment that could all fit together for yellow: beam, horse, and vault.
Then came blue with a clever bit of word play with doppler, graveyard, paradigm, and stick.
That left purple as today's rote fill with bell, cart, heart, and magnifying glass.
