NYT Connections #842 was published on Tuesday, September 30, 2025. The 16 tiles hide four groups: mannerisms that seem unnatural, words from a famous tongue twister, cartoon birds, and words ending in homophones of numbers. Try the hints below before opening the full solution.
Hints for Connections #842
Connections divides 16 words into four groups of four. The groups are color-coded by difficulty, and you can make up to four incorrect guesses. These clues move from the gentlest prompt to the most revealing.
Yellow group
Cumbersome behavior. Think of adjectives describing mannerisms that look forced or unnatural.
Green group
Get your chops round this wordplay. This group comes from a well-known tongue twister.
#1 Best Overall
Blue group
Feathered characters. Look for names of animated or cartoon birds.
Purple group
Sounds like a numeral. Each answer ends with a sound-alike reference to a number.
Rank #2
The 16 tiles
The grid contains:
WOOD, THEREFORE, WOODY, GUTHRIE, WOODSTOCK, CLASSICS, CHUCK, STIFF, COULD, WOODEN, CREATE, FOGHORN, AWKWARD, WOODCHUCK, SCROOGE, STILTED.
Answers for Connections #842
Spoiler warning: The complete groups and explanations are below.
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| Color | Category | Tiles | Why they fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Unnatural, as mannerisms | AWKWARD, STIFF, STILTED, WOODEN | Each word can describe behavior, movement or delivery that feels uncomfortable or forced. |
| Green | Words in a famous tongue twister | CHUCK, COULD, WOOD, WOODCHUCK | These words appear in the tongue-twister line “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” |
| Blue | Cartoon birds | FOGHORN, SCROOGE, WOODSTOCK, WOODY | Foghorn Leghorn, Scrooge McDuck, Woodstock and Woody Woodpecker are recognizable animated bird characters. |
| Purple | Ending with number homophones | CLASSICS, CREATE, GUTHRIE, THEREFORE | The endings sound like number names: classics (“six”), create (“eight”), Guthrie (“three”) and therefore (“four”). |
How to approach the trickiest decoys
Do not group every WOOD tile together
WOOD, WOODEN, WOODY, WOODSTOCK and WOODCHUCK look like an obvious word family, but the puzzle deliberately spreads them across different answers. WOOD and WOODCHUCK belong to the tongue-twister group; WOODY is a cartoon bird; WOODEN describes an unnatural mannerism. WOODSTOCK is also in the cartoon-bird group.
Check the grammar of the yellow set
AWKWARD, STIFF, STILTED and WOODEN can all characterize a person’s manner, speech or movement. That shared use is stronger than trying to connect them only by physical texture or shape.
Read the purple group aloud
The final group is based on pronunciation rather than spelling. Say the ends of CLASSICS, CREATE, GUTHRIE and THEREFORE aloud to hear six, eight, three and four respectively.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Tips for solving Connections puzzles
- Start with an unmistakable set, but test every tile against the other 12 before submitting.
- When several words share a visible fragment, assume at least one may be a decoy until the remaining words confirm the pattern.
- Look for different types of connections: definitions, proper names, phrases, spelling and sound.
- Use the four-mistake limit deliberately. If a proposed group contains a word that fits only loosely, keep searching for a cleaner quartet.
Connections #842 is available through the NYT Games site on desktop and mobile. The puzzle’s exact date matters: this answer set is for September 30, 2025, not September 30, 2026.
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