NYT Connections puzzle hint and answer for Tuesday, September 5 (#86)

NYT Connections puzzle
(Image credit: Future)

Let's get the Tuesday September 5 (86) NYT Connections game all lined up. Feel free to use our helpful hints to kickstart your daily game or finally pin down that one word you can't seem to match up, or go straight for the win with our full list of today's answers. New to the game? No problem. Just keep scrolling and take a peek at our general tips and info.

One deceptively simple word almost caught me out today, a sneaky trap that did a good job of looking innocent for far too many guesses. Luckily for me I eventually decided to approach today's Connections from a different angle, and tidied up the board that way instead.

NYT Connections hint today: Tuesday, September 5

Yellow: Try to think of various ways you can display information

Green: Nice little treats and unexpected goodies are the theme here

Blue: What would you traditionally eat during a big winter celebration?

Purple: (Do your best and) Think of song titles 

NYT Connections puzzle

(Image credit: NYT)

NYT Connections answer today: Tuesday, September 5

Yellow: Chart, Diagram, Graph, Map 

Green: Bonus, Extra, Icing, Perk 

Blue: Gravy, Pie, Stuffing, Turkey 

Purple: I Ran, Istanbul, Montero, Satisfaction

More about New York Times's Connections

Connections is the NYT's latest popular puzzle game where you have to find the common thread that ties four seemingly unrelated words together. Can you find all four increasingly challenging groups of words before you make four mistakes? Don't forget: every day only has one solution even if some words look like they could belong to more than one group, and you can (and should) shuffle the grid as many times as you need to. It can help jog your brain into reading the words in a different way.

If you enjoy Connections, you should check out the board game Codenames. It's a popular party game that tasks players with using clues to guess certain words from a grid. As in Connections, the heart of the game lies in how many different possible interpretations the words could have. Connections also clearly owes a debt to Wordle, the hit puzzle game that the New York Times bought in 2022. Perhaps most obvious is the way it uses colored emojis to let you share the results of your puzzle with other players on social media: 

Connections 

Puzzle #80

🟦🟪🟦🟦

🟦🟪🟦🟦

🟦🟦🟦🟦

🟪🟪🟪🟪

🟨🟨🟨🟨

🟩🟩🟩🟩

Each color corresponds to one grouping of four words; a row with mixed colors shows you incorrectly guessed one or more words in a group that didn't totally match. The rows also show what order you solved the Connections puzzle in. The rows aren't all created equal: the New York Times ranks them from "straightforward" to "tricky" starting with yellow and progressing to purple.

🟨🟩🟦🟪

Want to show up your Connections friends or just challenge yourself? Try to start by identifying the purple words first and nailing them with your very first guess!

Kerry Brunskill
Contributing Writer

When baby Kerry was brought home from the hospital her hand was placed on the space bar of the family Atari 400, a small act of parental nerdery that has snowballed into a lifelong passion for gaming and the sort of freelance job her school careers advisor told her she couldn't do. She's now PC Gamer's word game expert, taking on the daily Wordle puzzle to give readers a hint each and every day. Her Wordle streak is truly mighty.

Somehow Kerry managed to get away with writing regular features on old Japanese PC games, telling today's PC gamers about some of the most fascinating and influential games of the '80s and '90s.

Read more
Today's Wordle being played on a phone
Today's Wordle answer for Tuesday, March 4
Wordle today being played on a phone
Today's Wordle answer for Monday, January 6
Today's Wordle being played on a phone
Today's Wordle answer for Tuesday, March 11
Wordle today being played on a phone
Today's Wordle answer for Sunday, February 9
Wordle today being played on a phone
Today's Wordle answer for Tuesday, February 11
Today's Wordle being played on a phone
Today's Wordle answer for Tuesday, March 18
Latest in Puzzle
An image of a golden first place award from Geoguessr
'We're actually getting GeoGuessr on Steam before GTA 6': the Google Street View puzzler arrives on Valve's platform this April
World of Goo 2 a giant octopus-worm spits out a structure of goo upon which other goo is flowing.
After launching as an Epic Store exclusive, World of Goo 2 dribbles onto Steam this spring: 'We’re grateful to Epic for funding development of the game'
Wordle today puzzle on a smartphone
Today's Wordle answer for Wednesday, March 26
Today's Wordle being played on a phone
Today's Wordle answer for Tuesday, March 25
Wordle answers
Today's Wordle answer for Monday, March 24
A sign reads "HATRED IS POWER"
A demo for a lost videogame based on George Orwell's 1984 has emerged from the memory hole
Latest in News
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event