Issue #1072 Mon 18 May
NYT Connections Hints & Answer — May 18, 2026
A wordplay-heavy grid that wants to be read aloud. Trust your ear over your eye, scramble a few tiles in your head, and don't take any single word at face value.
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.
PAIR
- n. a set of two things used together
- v. to join or match two items
PARE
- v. to trim the outer layer off
- v. to reduce something gradually
PEAR
- n. a sweet, bell-shaped orchard fruit
PÈRE
- n. (French) father
- n. the elder of two men with the same name
BLOW
- v. to send out a current of air
- n. a hard, forceful hit
- v. (informal) to squander money
CRACK
- n. a narrow line or fissure
- v. to break with a sharp snapping sound
- n. (informal) a witty or cutting remark
POP
- n. a short, sharp explosive sound
- n. a fizzy soft drink
- n. a genre of popular music
- n. (informal) one's father
SPLIT
- v. to divide into separate parts
- v. (informal) to leave abruptly
- n. a position with legs extended opposite
PADRE
- n. a military or naval chaplain
- n. a priest, especially in Spain or Italy
RED
- n. the color of blood or rubies
- adj. flushed or ruddy in the face
- n. (informal, dated) a communist
ROYAL
- adj. relating to a king or queen
- n. a member of a monarch's family
- n. a standard paper size
TWIN
- n. one of two offspring born together
- adj. forming a matching set of two
- v. to link two places formally
CHEAP
- adj. low in price
- adj. of poor quality
- adj. (informal) unwilling to spend; stingy
EARP
- (not a standalone English word)
LUMP
- n. a compact, shapeless mass
- n. a swelling beneath the skin
- v. to group things together indiscriminately
WIKI
- n. a collaboratively edited website
yellow group 7 hints
Yellow group hints
Read four short words off the page and out loud — your ear hears one thing, your eyes see four different shapes.
A wordplay group — what matters here is sound, not meaning.
Sound-alikes: all four are pronounced exactly the same way.
Every one is a single syllable, and one of the four is a borrowed word that still wears a diacritical mark.
HOMOPHONES
One is PÈRE — French for 'father'.
PAIR · PARE · PEAR · PÈRE
green group 7 hints
Green group hints
An overinflated tire on a hot highway, humming a half-second before everyone in the car flinches.
Plain one-syllable verbs describing a sudden, violent physical event.
Synonyms — the four words all mean roughly the same thing.
The linking sense is intransitive: something that happens to an object on its own, not an action you perform on it.
RUPTURE
One is SPLIT.
BLOW · CRACK · POP · SPLIT
blue group 7 hints
Blue group hints
A warm July night: organ riffs between innings, grilled franks in the air, sunflower seeds in the dirt, a foul ball arcing into the bleachers.
Professional team sports.
Near-misses — each tile sits just one tiny tweak away from a well-known proper name.
Grammatically a mixed set — some adjectives, some nouns — yet every one maps onto a proper name drawn from the same single competitive league.
MLB PLAYER
One transforms like ROYAL → ROYALS.
PADRE (Padres) · RED (Reds) · ROYAL (Royals) · TWIN (Twins)
violet group 7 hints
Violet group hints
A jumbled scrap that feels almost recognizable, like a name stuck on the tip of your tongue you can't quite settle.
A wordplay group — the current dictionary meaning of each tile is a decoy, nothing more.
Anagrams — rearrange the letters of each tile and a different familiar word falls out.
Every unscrambled result is a single short common noun, and all four of those nouns belong to one shared everyday category.
FRUIT ANAGRAMS
EARP → PEAR.
CHEAP (PEACH) · EARP (PEAR) · LUMP (PLUM) · WIKI (KIWI)
Spoiler zone
Complete Connections answer
Open only the solution you want to see. Each answer stays hidden until you choose to reveal it.
-
Reveal the yellow group
HOMOPHONESPAIR · PARE · PEAR · PÈRE
-
Reveal the green group
RUPTUREBLOW · CRACK · POP · SPLIT
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Reveal the blue group
MLB PLAYERPADRE · RED · ROYAL · TWIN
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Reveal the violet group
FRUIT ANAGRAMSCHEAP · EARP · LUMP · WIKI
Verified solution for .
Frequently asked questions
Spoiler-free help for Connections on May 18, 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 18, 2026, or browse every Connections puzzle in the archive.
How hard is NYT Connections on May 18, 2026?
NYT Connections on May 18, 2026 rates 4 out of 4 on our difficulty scale — a real brain-bender. 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 18, 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 #1072?
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
- Wicked
- At a glance
- 4 groups · 16 words
Today on Cluestand
Today
- Difficulty
- Wicked
- At a glance
- 4 groups · 16 words