NYT Connections Hints, Answers for Nov. 9: Puzzle No. 1,247
Hints and answers for NYT Connections puzzle No. 1,247 on Monday, November 9, 2026. The purple group hides sea creatures at the ends of phrases. Yellow covers deceitful schemes, green jeans styles and blue serrated objects.
NYT Connections hints and answers for Monday, November 9, 2026, puzzle No. 1,247, are below, with clues first and full solutions after. The purple category is the hard one today: it asks players to spot sea creatures hiding at the end of four phrases.
Hints for each group
The hints run from the easiest yellow group to the toughest purple group. Stop reading here if you want to keep solving.
Yellow: "That's unfair!" Green: denim pants. Blue: jagged sides. Purple: under the sea.
Today's Connections answers
Yellow group, deceitful scheme: con job, flimflam, rip-off and shell game.
Green group, jeans descriptors: bootcut, distressed, low-rise and skinny.
Blue group, things with serrated edges: grapefruit spoon, mint leaf, steak knife and tape dispenser.
Purple group, ending in sea creatures: card shark, fun sponge, gamma ray and Navy SEAL.
Why today's grid is tricky
The puzzle's reviewer called it another toughie. The reviewer had never heard of a "fun sponge" before today. The Cambridge Dictionary defines the term as someone who does not want anyone to have any fun.
Longer words and phrases can help, the reviewer said, because they are so distinct that they sort faster. Fashion has been a frequent theme lately: jeans today, heels last week.
How Connections works
Players see a grid of 16 words and must find four groups of four that share a link. The catch is that Times puzzle editor Wyna Liu picks words that could fit more than one group. The obvious guess, four animals for example, is almost always wrong.
The Times runs a Connections Bot, similar to the one for Wordle. Players can visit it after finishing to get a numeric score and have their answers analyzed. Registered players of the Times Games section can also track puzzles completed, win rate, perfect scores and win streak.
Other puzzles for November 9
Wordle No. 1,969 has the answer LOAMY, a word for soil that is rich and crumbly. It has no repeated letters, begins with L and ends with Y. Yesterday's Wordle, No. 1,968 on November 8, was FIRST.
Strands is on puzzle No. 981 today, and Connections: Sports Edition is on No. 777. Yesterday's Connections was No. 1,246, and yesterday's Strands was No. 980.
