Issue #1065 Mon 11 May
NYT Connections Hints & Answer — May 11, 2026
A Monday grid with one quiet wordplay step at the end. Three groups invite a confident first guess; the fourth wants you to look at each word twice before you tap.
Word meanings & definitions
Stuck on a tricky Connections word? Click any tile below to see its dictionary entry — handy when a familiar word might be hiding a less-obvious meaning.
CREEP
- v. move slowly and cautiously
- n. an unpleasant person
- v. advance furtively on hands and feet
SLIP
- v. lose footing and slide
- v. pass quietly and unnoticed
- n. a minor error
- n. a light undergarment
SNEAK
- v. go in a stealthy manner
- n. an underhanded person
- adj. done without warning
STEAL
- v. take without permission
- v. move silently to avoid notice
- n. a bargain purchase
COLOR
- n. a visual hue or shade
- v. influence or distort perception
- n. vividness of description
PONZI
- n. a fraudulent investment operation
- adj. relating to such financial fraud
PYRAMID
- n. an ancient stone monument with sloping sides
- v. build up in stages
- n. a tiered structural shape
RHYME
- n. matching end sounds in verse
- v. correspond in sound
- n. a short poem with such matching
CHINATOWN
- n. an urban district populated mainly by Chinese residents
KNIVES OUT
- idiom. openly hostile and ready to attack
- n. a 2019 whodunit film
SEVEN
- num. the cardinal number after six
- n. a playing card of that value
- n. a 1995 crime thriller
VERTIGO
- n. a sensation of spinning and lost balance
- n. a 1958 Hitchcock thriller
- n. dizziness from heights
ELEGY
- n. a mournful poem for the dead
- n. a piece of music with sorrowful character
KARMA
- n. consequences of past actions in Hindu and Buddhist belief
- n. perceived destiny shaped by behavior
KEYED
- adj. tense and excited
- v. scratched paint with a sharp object
- adj. tuned to a particular pitch
SHANDY
- n. beer mixed with lemonade or ginger beer
yellow group 7 hints
Yellow group hints
Bare feet on a hallway floor at 2am, holding a door handle so the latch never clicks.
Verbs of quiet movement — how you cross a room without being heard.
All four are synonyms pointing at the same kind of action.
Each wants the same small two-letter preposition tacked onto its end to lock the meaning down.
MOVE STEALTHILY, WITH "IN"
One is SNEAK — as in SNEAK IN.
CREEP · SLIP · SNEAK · STEAL
green group 7 hints
Green group hints
A plan laid out neatly on paper — sometimes a fraudster's blueprint, sometimes a painter's mood board.
Vocabulary — nouns waiting for the same noun to follow them.
Compound completions: each pairs with the same trailing word to form a familiar phrase.
The shared trailing word names a type of plan or arrangement — covering finance, art, and poetry alike.
KINDS OF SCHEMES
One is PONZI — as in PONZI SCHEME.
COLOR · PONZI · PYRAMID · RHYME
blue group 7 hints
Blue group hints
A trench coat, a notebook, a phone call at the wrong hour — each entry is a film about someone trying to figure out who did it.
Cinema — titles you'd find filed under thriller and mystery.
Category-membership: every entry belongs to one specific film subgenre.
Specifically, films whose plots hinge on an investigator unravelling a case.
DETECTIVE MOVIES
One is CHINATOWN — Polanski's 1974 noir starring Jack Nicholson.
CHINATOWN · KNIVES OUT · SEVEN · VERTIGO
violet group 7 hints
Violet group hints
Read each one slowly and trim something off both ends — a familiar thing starts looking back at you from inside.
Wordplay group — spelling matters more than meaning.
Hidden words: a smaller word is buried inside each entry.
Specifically, peel one letter off the front and one off the back of each, and what's left is a part of the human body.
BODY PARTS SURROUNDED BY TWO LETTERS
One is SHANDY — strip the S and Y and you have HAND.
ELEGY (LEG) · KARMA (ARM) · KEYED (EYE) · SHANDY (HAND)
Spoiler zone
Complete Connections answer
Open only the solution you want to see. Each answer stays hidden until you choose to reveal it.
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Reveal the yellow group
MOVE STEALTHILY, WITH "IN"CREEP · SLIP · SNEAK · STEAL
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Reveal the green group
KINDS OF SCHEMESCOLOR · PONZI · PYRAMID · RHYME
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Reveal the blue group
DETECTIVE MOVIESCHINATOWN · KNIVES OUT · SEVEN · VERTIGO
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Reveal the violet group
BODY PARTS SURROUNDED BY TWO LETTERSELEGY · KARMA · KEYED · SHANDY
Verified solution for .
Frequently asked questions
Spoiler-free help for Connections on May 11, 2026. Every answer below helps you along without giving the game away — ready to see the full solution? See the complete Connections answer for May 11, 2026, or browse every Connections puzzle in the archive.
How hard is NYT Connections on May 11, 2026?
NYT Connections on May 11, 2026 rates 3 out of 4 on our difficulty scale — a tougher-than-average puzzle. As always you sort sixteen words into four colour-coded groups, and our hints tease what links each group without ever naming the words.
What's a spoiler-free hint for NYT Connections on May 11, 2026?
The hint ladder above starts with a one-line vibe for each of the four groups, then adds the connecting idea, then the wording of each category. You climb only as far as you need, and no grouped words are shown until the final reveal.
How many groups are in NYT Connections #1065?
Four groups of four, ordered from the gentlest to the trickiest. For the categories and the sixteen words themselves, open the answer section on this page — the hints here keep them hidden.
Today
- Difficulty
- Stiff
- At a glance
- 4 groups · 16 words
Today on Cluestand
Today
- Difficulty
- Stiff
- At a glance
- 4 groups · 16 words