Connections Hint
Puzzle #1194 · September 17, 2026

NYT Connections Hints for September 17, 2026

Start with the spoiler-free hints. Go deeper only when you need to. Reveal answers on your own terms.

Thursday, September 17, 2026
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Today’s 16 Puzzle Words
Tap any word to see how it’s used in this puzzle
SUBWAY STATIONHANDLESTRIANGLEMINE SHAFTFLEXIBILITYWOLVERINEPRESTIGETAPFOUNTAINSPRINGGIVELANGUAGESEWER LINEBOUNCEWELLSHEEP DETECTIVES

Spoiler-Free Hints

Three levels — warmer as you read down
i Ultra safe

A direction for each group — no names given.

  • These four describe how soft things behave when you press on them.
  • Something about these four sits low — or at least out of view.
  • Each one feels like a fragment of something much bigger and familiar.
  • Something unusual ties these together; their everyday meanings won't get you there.
ii Warmer

What kind of thinking each group asks for.

  • This is about physical properties of materials — how a solid responds when it is pushed or pulled.
  • Think infrastructure and geography — the hidden systems and spaces that keep a city running out of sight.
  • Film knowledge required: these are titles that people habitually shorten by dropping a leading article.
  • A linguistic link joins these — one that only appears once a small extra word is added.
iii Mild spoilers

Pointed nudges on the words built to fool you.

  • All four name the same material property — the ability to bend under pressure and then snap back into shape.
  • Each is a structure or space located beneath the ground — the sort of thing drawn on a city cross-section.
  • All four are the tail end of a film title, complete only once a three-letter article is added back.
  • One short everyday word — a prefix — completes a familiar phrase with each, shifting meaning every time.

Today’s Trap Words

The words engineered to mislead

Every Connections board plants a few decoys. Here are today’s, and why they pull you the wrong way.

SPRING

Its water-source sense is so strong that solvers usually file it with the earthy, physical nouns — never suspecting its more abstract role.

GIVE

A flat, unremarkable verb that seems to fit nowhere, so solvers leave it for last because 'handing something over' looks unrelated to anything else.

FOUNTAIN

Sounds like a stone water feature, so it reads as a landscape or infrastructure word rather than a piece of a film title.

WOLVERINE

Instantly reads as a superhero or a wild animal, nudging solvers toward a pop-culture or fauna frame before they ever consider cinema.

Connections Answers — September 17, 2026

Tap any group to reveal it
Answers are hidden — tap a group to peek, or reveal all at once.
ELASTICITY
SPRING · GIVE · BOUNCE · FLEXIBILITY
Tap to reveal
THINGS THAT ARE UNDERGROUND
SUBWAY STATION · WELL · SEWER LINE · MINE SHAFT
Tap to reveal
HUGH JACKMAN MOVIES, WITH "THE"
PRESTIGE · FOUNTAIN · SHEEP DETECTIVES · WOLVERINE
Tap to reveal
LOVE ___
TRIANGLE · TAP · LANGUAGE · HANDLES
Tap to reveal
SEE ALSO:
NYT Wordle hints for September 17, 2026 NYT Pips hints for September 17, 2026 NYT Strands hints for September 17, 2026

Category Breakdown — Puzzle #1194

Why each group works — not just what it is

ELASTICITY

BOUNCE, FLEXIBILITY, GIVE and SPRING all name the same material property — the ability to deform under pressure and recover. GIVE is the quiet saboteur: here it means 'yield,' not 'hand over.'

THINGS THAT ARE UNDERGROUND

MINE SHAFT, SEWER LINE, SUBWAY STATION and WELL are all structures or spaces found below the surface. Concrete and literal, this group exists mainly to catch anyone who reads SPRING as a water source.

HUGH JACKMAN MOVIES, WITH "THE"

FOUNTAIN, PRESTIGE, SHEEP DETECTIVES and WOLVERINE are each the trimmed tail of a Hugh Jackman film: The Fountain, The Prestige, The Sheep Detectives, The Wolverine.

LOVE ___

HANDLES, LANGUAGE, TAP and TRIANGLE each complete a phrase beginning with 'love.' The prefix never changes, but its meaning swings from waistline to romance to a light punch.

Word Guide — All 16 Puzzle Words

What each word means in this puzzle
SUBWAY STATION
A stop on an urban railway that runs below the streets, reached by stairs or escalator from the surface.
HANDLES
Grips on a bag, door or tool — also a verb meaning to manage or deal with. Paired with a certain four-letter word, it becomes a wry term for excess weight at the waist.
TRIANGLE
A three-sided shape — and, in a certain phrase, a romantic situation involving three people.
MINE SHAFT
A vertical or sloping tunnel dug to reach minerals far below the surface. Its compound form makes it one of the most literal, concrete nouns on the board.
FLEXIBILITY
The quality of bending or adapting without breaking — a trait that materials, schedules and minds can all share.
WOLVERINE
A stocky, ferocious member of the weasel family, and the name of a Marvel superhero. Both readings point toward a 2013 solo film.
PRESTIGE
High standing or reputation, and the name of a 2006 film about rival magicians. The cinematic sense is the one doing the work here.
TAP
To strike lightly, or a device controlling the flow of water. One sense fits a phrase; the other turns it into a watery decoy.
FOUNTAIN
An ornamental jet of water, or a source of something abundant. It also opens the title of a 2006 film, once its leading article is restored.
SPRING
The season, a coiled metal device, a jump, or a flow of groundwater. That spread of meanings is why it can be pulled toward a completely different group at first glance.
GIVE
To hand something over, but also to bend or yield under pressure — the sense that matters when describing how a material behaves.
LANGUAGE
A system of communication shared by a group, and also the second half of a phrase about how someone prefers to express affection.
SEWER LINE
The pipe that carries waste water away from buildings, usually running beneath roads and foundations. Two ordinary words fused into one municipal noun.
BOUNCE
To rebound after striking a surface, and slang for leaving a place. In a materials sense it names the recoil of something compressed and then released.
WELL
A deep hole dug to reach water, and also an adverb meaning 'in a good way.' Both senses are common, which is exactly why it tempts solvers in two directions.
SHEEP DETECTIVES
An odd-sounding compound that turns out to be the tail end of a 2025 film title about a flock that solves a mystery.

Puzzle Design Analysis

Why the editor constructed it this way

Wyna Liu builds a deliberate water-and-earth mirage: SPRING, WELL, FOUNTAIN and TAP all read as aquatic or geological, blurring the yellow, green and blue boundaries before they resolve. The Jackman set is the structural trick — it only clicks once you mentally restore a three-letter article. Purple then inverts that logic, hanging four unrelated nouns on one unchanging prefix whose meaning mutates each time.

Difficulty & Analysis

How tough today’s board really plays
Overall
5.8/10
Most deceptive
SPRING

a textbook decoy

Hardest group
LOVE ___

requires lateral thinking

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