NYT Connections Hints and Answers for July 25 (#1140)
If you are stuck on today’s NYT Connections puzzle, the July 25 solution is below. The game gives you 16 words, and your job is to split them into four groups of four. The colors matter: yellow is easiest, followed by blue, green, and purple as the hardest.
Today’s puzzle is #1140, and it leans on familiar wordplay: family terms, crying phrases, African currencies, and compounds built around “strip”. If you want to protect your streak, use the hints before the full explanations.
Today’s Quick Answer
- Yellow: ABUELA, HIJO, MADRE, PRIMO. These are Spanish family terms, so they are the easiest color to lock in first.
- Green: CHOKE, MIST, TEAR, WELL. These connect to crying through phrases like “choke up” and “eyes well up.”
- Blue: KWANZA, LEONE, NAIRA, RAND. These are all currencies used in African countries, which makes this the geography-heavy group.
- Purple: CLUB, MALL, POKER, STEAK. Each one pairs with “strip” to form a compound phrase or term.
How to Play NYT Connections
NYT Connections gives you 16 words every day and asks you to sort them into four groups of four. The rule is simple, but the board is designed to make each word look like it belongs somewhere else.
The categories are color-coded from yellow to blue to green to purple, with yellow the easiest and purple the hardest. You get four wrong guesses before the game ends, so the order in which you submit groups matters.
Connections has been a daily habit for many word-game players since its 2023 launch. That is why a clean solution is useful: it saves your streak and keeps the next puzzle from feeling like a trap.
Today’s Puzzle Grid
The 16 words for the July 25 puzzle are STEAK, LEONE, PRIMO, MALL, MADRE, MIST, POKER, CHOKE, CLUB, RAND, TEAR, NAIRA, HIJO, KWANZA, WELL, ABUELA.
The trickiest thing is that the words are mixed so the obvious categories are not sitting in one corner. Once you spot the family terms and the crying phrases, the currency and “strip” groups become much easier to see.
NYT Connections Hints for July 25
- Yellow: Spanish names for relatives. These are the family words on the board, and they are the safest first guess.
- Green: Ways you might cry. These are emotion-related phrases, especially when a word is paired with “up” or “eyes.”
- Blue: Types of African currency. This group needs a bit of geography, so it is better to hold until the pattern is clearer.
- Purple: Words that can be paired with “strip.” This is the trickiest color because each word uses a different meaning of the same modifier.
Yellow: ABUELA, HIJO, MADRE, PRIMO
These are Spanish words for family members. ABUELA means grandmother, HIJO means son or child, MADRE means mother, and PRIMO means cousin, usually male cousin in Spanish.
This group is easiest because the shared language is obvious once you spot it. It is also the group you should submit first, since it locks in a safe answer without burning momentum.
Green: CHOKE, MIST, TEAR, WELL
These are all phrases you can use around crying. You can choke up, your eyes can mist, you can tear up, and your eyes can well up with tears.
The trap is that each word can also be a noun or verb outside emotion. That is classic Connections: one meaning is obvious, while the puzzle uses a more idiomatic second meaning.
Blue: KWANZA, LEONE, NAIRA, RAND
These are African currencies. KWANZA is used in Angola, LEONE in Sierra Leone, NAIRA in Nigeria, and RAND in South Africa.
This group is harder because it requires a little geography, not just wordplay. If you are trying to protect a streak, it is worth holding until you can confirm the common thread instead of guessing from a single word.
Purple: CLUB, MALL, POKER, STEAK
These pair with “strip” to make strip club, strip mall, poker strip, and steak strip. The everyday meanings of club, mall, poker, and steak are distractions; the puzzle wants the compounds.
The purple category is the payoff because “strip” changes meaning depending on the word. A strip club is a venue, a strip mall is a shopping complex, a poker strip is a sequence of cards, and a steak strip is a long cut of meat.
How to Use the Hints Without Spoiling Yourself
Start with the yellow group, then look for the emotional phrases in green. Those two groups are the fastest way to clear half the board and reveal the remaining pattern.
If you are using the puzzle live, submit groups in color order rather than alphabetically. The game uses the color codes to show how confident it is about each category, and early easy answers reduce the chance of burning a guess on a false lead.
Once you have three groups, the last one usually writes itself. That is the best way to solve Connections without relying on the full answer list.
When NYT Connections Resets
Today’s puzzle resets daily at midnight local time. You get 24 hours in your timezone, so the reset can happen at a different clock time depending on where you live.
This matters if you are playing on mobile and thinking, “I will do it later.” The game does not pause for you; it waits for your local date to change.
The Puzzle’s Wordplay
The cleverness of this board comes from overlap. Words like club, mall, poker, and steak look like separate ideas until you notice that all can attach to the same modifier.
That design is what makes Connections feel fair but frustrating. A four-color grid can be solved in minutes, but
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