Here are the hints and answers for today’s NYT Connections puzzle for Aug. 27, 2026. Today’s puzzle is game #1,173 and brings together electricity, emotions, shades of gray and a clever music-related wordplay category.
If you are trying to protect your daily NYT Connections streak, the hints below can help you find the four groups without revealing the answers immediately. Spoilers follow, so stop reading before the answer section if you still want to solve the puzzle yourself.
Hints for Today’s NYT Connections Groups
Here are four clues for today’s groups, moving from the easiest yellow category to the trickier purple group:
- Yellow group hint: Don’t get a shock!
- Green group hint: Waaaaah!
- Blue group hint: Different versions of one color.
- Purple group hint: Four similar words, each with one letter added.
The clues point towards four very different connections. Some rely on straightforward associations, while the final category requires you to look closely at how each word is constructed.
Answers for Today’s Connections Groups
If you are ready for the solutions, here are today’s NYT Connections answers:
- Yellow group: Electric things
- Green group: Moved to tears
- Blue group: Shades of gray
- Purple group: Music genre plus starting letter
What Are Today’s NYT Connections Answers?
Today’s puzzle gives players 16 words that need to be divided into four groups of four. The categories range from obvious connections to a more subtle letter-based trick.
The Yellow Words in Today’s Connections
The theme is electric things.
The four answers are electric eel, lightning, live wire and Pikachu.
The first three have direct connections to electricity, while Pikachu is the fictional addition to the group, thanks to its electric powers in the Pokémon universe. Once you spot the electrical theme, this group becomes fairly easy to identify.
The Green Words in Today’s Connections
The theme is moved to tears.
The four answers are choked up, emotional, misty and overcome.
Each word or phrase can describe someone who is deeply affected emotionally. “Choked up” and “misty” can particularly suggest someone becoming emotional enough to cry, while “overcome” can describe being overwhelmed by feelings.
The Blue Words in Today’s Connections
The theme is shades of gray.
The four answers are ash, dove, pewter and slate.
These words can all refer to shades or tones of gray. The category is slightly deceptive because each word can also have a completely different meaning in everyday use. Recognising them as color descriptions is the key to solving this group.
The Purple Words in Today’s Connections
The theme is music genre plus starting letter.
The four answers are Brock, Nemo, spunk and wrap.
This is the wordplay-heavy group in today’s NYT Connections puzzle. Remove the first letter from each word and you get a music genre: B + rock, N + emo, S + punk and W + rap.
This makes the purple category the most challenging of the four because the connection is hidden inside the spelling rather than being based on the words’ meanings.
Today’s NYT Connections Puzzle Explained
Today’s puzzle uses a good mix of literal and wordplay-based connections. The yellow group is built around electricity, the green group focuses on emotional reactions, and the blue group asks you to recognise different gray shades. The purple group then changes direction completely with its letter-plus-music-genre trick.
If you are solving NYT Connections without looking up the answers, a useful approach is to start with the strongest associations. Once one group is removed, the remaining words often make the less obvious categories easier to recognise.
Conclusion
The August 27 NYT Connections puzzle combines familiar concepts with a clever final twist. The electric-things group is likely to be the easiest starting point, while the music-genre category requires the most lateral thinking.
If you were stuck on today’s puzzle, these NYT Connections hints and answers should help explain not just which words belong together, but why each group works.
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