Connections Hint
Puzzle #1205 · September 28, 2026

NYT Connections Hints for September 28, 2026

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

Monday, September 28, 2026
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Today’s 16 Puzzle Words
Tap any word to see how it’s used in this puzzle
HORSERADISHCHIHUAHUAVIPERCORNTABASCOWHEATDURANGOARKANSANSCHALLENGERMIGNONETTEPOSSESSESLEMONCELERYBAMBOOSPRINGINGCHARGER

Spoiler-Free Hints

Three levels — warmer as you read down
i Ultra safe

A direction for each group — no names given.

  • Four of these rise up from the ground — think about their shape.
  • Four small extras that finish the job.
  • Four proper names tied to one family of products.
  • Something strange links these — their meanings are a dead end.
ii Warmer

What kind of thinking each group asks for.

  • Think gardening and grain: how each plant is built, especially the part you don't eat.
  • The domain is food and flavor — the sharp, acidic, or spicy accents served alongside something briny.
  • You need automotive knowledge — the product line of one particular American manufacturer.
  • Forget definitions entirely; look at the written letters and compare the building blocks of each word.
iii Mild spoilers

Pointed nudges on the words built to fool you.

  • Each of these plants grows around a central stem — the structure is the shared feature, not the flavor.
  • All four are accompaniments traditionally served with a particular raw shellfish on the half shell.
  • Each is a nameplate from one American automaker's lineup across different eras.
  • Each entry splits into three letters followed by a trigram repeated twice — spelling, not meaning, is the key.

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.

LEMON

Slang for a defective car, so it feels like it belongs with the vehicle names. Here it sits on the plate, not in the garage.

HORSERADISH

It is literally a root vegetable, so it looks like a natural fit alongside the plants. Its job here is as a fiery topping instead.

MIGNONETTE

An unfamiliar word that also names a small fragrant flower, making it look botanical when it is actually a sauce.

CHALLENGER

Reads like an ordinary noun for a competitor rather than a product name, so solvers dismiss it as filler.

Connections Answers — September 28, 2026

Tap any group to reveal it
Answers are hidden — tap a group to peek, or reveal all at once.
THINGS WITH STALKS
BAMBOO · CELERY · WHEAT · CORN
Tap to reveal
OYSTER CONDIMENTS
LEMON · TABASCO · HORSERADISH · MIGNONETTE
Tap to reveal
DODGE MODELS
VIPER · DURANGO · CHARGER · CHALLENGER
Tap to reveal
THREE LETTERS PLUS REPEATED TRIGRAMS
CHIHUAHUA · ARKANSANS · SPRINGING · POSSESSES
Tap to reveal
SEE ALSO:
NYT Wordle hints for September 28, 2026 NYT Pips hints for September 28, 2026 NYT Strands hints for September 28, 2026

Category Breakdown — Puzzle #1205

Why each group works — not just what it is

THINGS WITH STALKS

Bamboo, celery, corn and wheat all send up a long central stalk. It is the most literal group on the board, and most solvers lock it in fast — then start hunting for crossovers.

OYSTER CONDIMENTS

The sharp, acidic, spicy things that traditionally sit beside a raw bar order. Tabasco and lemon are the everyday answers; mignonette is the specialist's one.

DODGE MODELS

An SUV, a muscle coupe, a sedan and a sports car from one American marque across the decades. Pure nameplate recall — there is no wordplay safety net if the brand means nothing to you.

THREE LETTERS PLUS REPEATED TRIGRAMS

Every answer is three letters plus a three-letter chunk said twice: ARK+ANS+ANS, CHI+HUA+HUA, POS+SES+SES, SPR+ING+ING. The trick stays invisible until you stop reading for meaning and start spelling.

Word Guide — All 16 Puzzle Words

What each word means in this puzzle
HORSERADISH
A pungent root grated into a fiery condiment; the startling 'horse' at the front has nothing to do with animals.
CHIHUAHUA
A breed of tiny dog, and also a Mexican state and city — a word whose letters repeat in a very tidy way.
VIPER
A venomous snake with hinged fangs — a name so aggressive that it gets borrowed for fast, threatening machines and characters.
CORN
A tall grain crop with kernels on a cob; also the word for the hardened patch of skin on a toe, a meaning that has nothing to do with this puzzle.
TABASCO
A brand of aged red pepper sauce, and by extension any hot sauce of that style — a familiar shake-on topping for seafood and eggs.
WHEAT
The cereal grain behind most bread and pasta, grown as a tall field crop and harvested for its seed heads.
DURANGO
A city and a state in Mexico, and also the kind of rugged name an automaker gives to a truck-like vehicle.
ARKANSANS
The residents of a southern U.S. state, spelled with a peculiar abundance of the same few letters.
CHALLENGER
One who competes for a title, or a formal objector. The word reads like a plain noun rather than a proper product name.
MIGNONETTE
A French-derived term for a sharp shallot-and-vinegar sauce served with raw seafood, and also the name of a small fragrant flower. The sauce is the point here.
POSSESSES
An ordinary verb meaning 'has or owns,' notable mainly for being spelled with an unusual amount of repeated material.
LEMON
A sour yellow citrus fruit — and also slang for a defective purchase, especially a car that turns out to be a bad deal.
CELERY
A crisp, pale green vegetable sold in whole bunches, mostly water, and recognizable by its long ribbed ribs.
BAMBOO
A fast-growing woody grass with hollow, jointed poles, used for everything from flooring to scaffolding — and famously hard to contain once it spreads.
SPRINGING
The act of leaping up or appearing suddenly; it can also describe things that coil or are driven by built-up tension.
CHARGER
A word for a warhorse, a plate of food, or the gadget that refills a battery — and also the kind of name an automaker gives a muscular car.

Puzzle Design Analysis

Why the editor constructed it this way

This grid runs on bait-and-switch. Lemon doubles as car-dealer slang, while horseradish and mignonette both name plants, so the botanical set keeps tugging attention away from Yellow. The automaker group offers no wordplay shelter — only recall. Purple then flips the board entirely, relocating the answer from meaning into spelling and forcing solvers to count letters instead of read.

Difficulty & Analysis

How tough today’s board really plays
Overall
6.5/10
Most deceptive
LEMON

a textbook decoy

Hardest group
Repeated Trigrams

requires lateral thinking

Connections Strategy Guides

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