Honestly, some days the New York Times just wants to see us struggle. If you've opened the grid for the NYT Connections hints September 6 puzzle and felt like you were staring at a bowl of alphabet soup, you aren't the only one. It's puzzle #818, and while the difficulty rating is hovering around a 2 out of 5 for some, the red herrings today are exceptionally mean.
Most people see a word like "BLEW" and immediately look for "RED" or "GREEN." It's a classic trap. Wyna Liu and the editorial team at the Times love a good homophone bait-and-switch. This puzzle is less about knowing obscure trivia and more about resisting the urge to click on things that sorta sound like they belong together.
Quick Hints to Get You Moving
Before we get into the heavy lifting, here are some nudges. Sometimes all you need is a little push to see the board differently.
- Yellow: Think about things that have literally snapped or popped.
- Green: This one is spooky. Think "things that go bump in the night."
- Blue: These are all verbs for looking into the future.
- Purple: This is a "fill-in-the-blank" situation involving the music industry’s biggest night.
The Red Herring You Need to Ignore
Let's talk about the elephant in the room. If you saw BLEW, CHORAL, READ, and WIGHT, you probably thought you found the "Colors That Aren't Spelled Like Colors" category. Blue, Coral, Red, White.
It's brilliant. It's also a total lie.
If you waste a guess on that, you're going to be frustrated. Those four words actually belong in four separate categories. That's the kind of devious construction that makes Connections both addictive and infuriating.
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Breaking Down the NYT Connections Hints September 6 Categories
If the hints above weren't enough, let’s get specific. Here is how the groups are actually partitioned for the September 6 challenge.
The Yellow Group: Ruptured
These are straightforward. They all describe something that is no longer in one piece.
- Words: BLEW, BROKE, BURST, SPLIT.
- The Vibe: High-pressure situations or physical breakage. Think of a pipe or a seam in your jeans.
The Green Group: Apparition
This is the "ghostly" category. It’s slightly more literary than your average Casper reference.
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- Words: SHADE, SPECTER, SPIRIT, WIGHT.
- The Vibe: If you've played The Witcher or read old fantasy novels, WIGHT probably jumped out at you. If not, it's an archaic term for a living being, but in modern gaming and fantasy, it almost always refers to an undead creature. SHADE is another one that trips people up because they think of a lamp or a tree, but here it's used as a synonym for a ghost.
The Blue Group: Predict
These are verbs for telling the future.
- Words: CALL, DIVINE, FORECAST, READ.
- The Vibe: You might READ tea leaves or DIVINE a result. CALL is the one that might blend into a "Telephone" category if you aren't careful, but in this context, it's like calling a shot in pool or a game's outcome.
The Purple Group: "Best ____ Performance" Grammy Award
This is the "hard" group, but honestly, if you're a music fan, it might be the easiest to spot.
- Words: AMERICANA, CHORAL, JAZZ, RAP.
- The Vibe: These are all specific categories you'll see during the Grammy Awards broadcast. AMERICANA and CHORAL are the outliers that usually make this group tough, but once you see RAP and JAZZ together, the music connection becomes obvious.
Why Today’s Puzzle Feels Different
The complexity of the NYT Connections hints September 6 layout isn't just in the words themselves, but in the overlap. SPIRIT and DIVINE look like they belong in a "Religious" or "Ethereal" category. CHORAL and SPIRIT could almost be "Church Music."
Expert players usually recommend the "Look but don't touch" strategy for the first two minutes. If you find a group of four, don't click them yet. Look for a fifth word that might also fit. If you find a fifth word, that category is a trap, and you need to pivot.
For instance, READ could be part of the "Future" group (reading palms), but it's also a homophone for a color. Because it fits two "potential" groups, it’s a pivot point. In this puzzle, it firmly belongs with the predictors.
How to Solve It Without Losing Your Mind
- Shuffle immediately. The default grid often places words from different categories next to each other to create false associations.
- Look for the outliers. WIGHT is such a specific, weird word that it has to be part of a ghostly or fantasy-themed group. Start there.
- Identify the Grammy link. RAP and JAZZ are too close to be a coincidence. If you see two music genres, look for two more. AMERICANA and CHORAL are the ones.
- Save the "Broken" verbs for last. BLEW, BROKE, BURST, SPLIT are very common words. They are the easiest to identify once the distractions are gone.
If you are still stuck on the NYT Connections hints September 6 grid, take a breath. The game is designed to be solved through elimination. Once you lock in the Apparitions (Green) and the Predictions (Blue), the rest of the board usually collapses into place.
To improve your game for tomorrow, start paying attention to words that have multiple meanings. "DIVINE" is an adjective meaning "heavenly," but it's also a verb meaning "to discover by intuition." The NYT loves using the verb form of a word that everyone usually uses as a noun or adjective.
Go back to the grid and look at SHADE. It’s not about the sun; it’s about the soul. That shift in perspective is exactly what you need to keep your streak alive.