Issue #1158 Thu 21 May
Connections hints — May 21, 2026
A homey, kitchen-warm grid today. Three groups land on familiar ground; the fourth asks you to fill in a blank and trust your ear over your eye.
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.
CHESS
- n. a strategy board game played on 64 squares
- n. a rich pie of sugar, butter, and eggs
PECAN
- n. a smooth brown edible nut
- n. the hickory tree that bears this nut
- n. a sweet pie of nuts and corn syrup
PUMPKIN
- n. a large round orange gourd
- n. (informal) an affectionate term for someone
- n. a spiced pie made from squash purée
SHOOFLY
- n. a molasses and crumb pie
- n. a child's rocking toy shaped like an animal
CABOOSE
- n. the last car on a freight train
- n. (slang) a person's rear end
CAN
- n. a sealed metal container for food or drink
- v. to preserve food in airtight jars or tins
- v. (informal) to dismiss someone from a job
- n. (slang) the buttocks
MOON
- n. Earth's natural satellite
- v. to behave dreamily or listlessly
- v. to bare one's backside as a prank
PEACH
- n. a soft juicy stone fruit
- n. (informal) an outstandingly fine person or thing
- n. a pinkish-orange color
ADVANTAGE
- n. a favorable or beneficial circumstance
- n. the point scored just after a tied score in tennis
DEUCE
- n. a card or die face bearing two pips
- n. a tied score requiring two points to win the game
- n. (dated) the devil, used in mild oaths
FORTY
- n. the cardinal number after thirty-nine
- n. a player's third-point score in a tennis game
LOVE
- n. deep affection or attachment
- v. to feel deep affection for someone
- n. a score of zero in tennis
COLONEL
- n. a senior commissioned military officer
HONEY
- n. a sweet syrup made by bees
- n. a term of endearment for a loved one
- adj. of a warm golden-yellow color
HOT
- adj. having a high temperature
- adj. having a pungent, spicy flavor
- adj. (informal) currently very popular or in demand
YELLOW
- n. the bright color of lemons and egg yolks
- adj. (informal) cowardly or lacking courage
yellow group 7 nudges
Yellow group
A fork hovers over a wedge of something sweet, cooling on a counter by an open kitchen window.
Food — specifically the dessert end of a menu.
Category-membership: the four are all examples of one specific thing.
Each answer is a single descriptive word; picture the same unstated noun placed after all four to finish each name.
KINDS OF PIES
One is PECAN.
CHESS · PECAN · PUMPKIN · SHOOFLY
green group 7 nudges
Green group
The kind of cheeky joke that makes a kid snicker behind a cupped hand at the dinner table.
Human anatomy — but only its most casual, slangy side.
Category-membership: all four are informal nicknames for one and the same thing.
Each answer is also a perfectly ordinary singular noun; it's the shared slang sense, not the literal one, that ties them together.
THINGS ASSOCIATED WITH BUTTS
One of them is PEACH.
CABOOSE · CAN · MOON · PEACH
blue group 7 nudges
Blue group
A hot afternoon on cropped grass, a hushed crowd, and a single voice calling out a running tally before every fresh serve.
All four belong to the world of competitive sport.
Category-membership — the four are all members of one fixed set of established terms.
The set is the official vocabulary of one racquet-and-net sport played on a court — but only one narrow slice of that vocabulary.
TENNIS SCORING TERMS
One of the four is DEUCE.
ADVANTAGE · DEUCE · FORTY · LOVE
violet group 7 nudges
Violet group
That sharp little tingle at the back of your nose the instant a squeeze bottle hits a ballpark pretzel.
A wordplay group — the four words don't connect by meaning at all.
Compound completions — each word teams up with one same extra word to make a familiar phrase.
That shared word lands after each of the four, so every member becomes the first half of a two-word phrase.
___ MUSTARD
One of the four is COLONEL.
COLONEL · HONEY · HOT · YELLOW