Today’s NYT Connections puzzle for November 11, 2026 (#1249) brings together four different themes, including types of medicine, golf course terminology, objects filled with air, and a clever wordplay challenge involving palindromes.
Some words might look like obvious matches at first, but the puzzle has a few misleading combinations that can easily cost you a mistake. If you’re struggling to find the connections, we’ve put together spoiler-free hints, category clues, and all 16 answers to help you finish today’s challenge.
Whether you’re trying to protect your daily winning streak or simply want to check your guesses, here’s everything you need to know about today’s NYT Connections puzzle.
NYT Connections Words Today (November 11, 2026)
Before looking at the hints, here are all 16 words featured in Connections puzzle #1249:
SHREDDER, HERBAL, PATOOT, WHOOPIE CUSHION, GREEN, FOLK, BUBBLE, ROUGH, AFTERNOON, RHEOSTATS, TRADITIONAL, TIRE, SAND, TRAP, HOLISTIC, AIR MATTRESS, TEE BOX.
The challenge is to separate these words into four groups of four based on their hidden connections.
NYT Connections Hints Today for November 11
Need a little help without revealing the complete solution? These clues should point you in the right direction.
Here are four hints for today’s color-coded groups:
- Yellow: Think about different remedies and approaches to healing.
- Green: Imagine spending a day playing 18 holes of golf.
- Blue: These are things you can blow up or inflate.
- Purple: Pay attention to the final letters of each word. They have something unusual in common.
The purple group is likely to require the most thought. Instead of focusing on what the words mean, look closely at their spelling.
One Word From Each Connections Group
Still stuck? Here is one answer from each category to give you another clue.
- Yellow: FOLK
- Green: GREEN
- Blue: BUBBLE
- Purple: SHREDDER
NYT Connections Categories Today (November 11, 2026)
Warning: Category spoilers ahead!
If the earlier clues weren’t enough, here are the four category names for today’s puzzle.
- Yellow: Kinds of Medicine
- Green: Parts of a Golf Course
- Blue: Things Filled With Air
- Purple: Ending in Palindromes
The final category is the trickiest because it relies on recognizing letter patterns rather than identifying similar meanings.
NYT Connections Answers Today (November 11, 2026)
Spoiler alert! The following section reveals all 16 answers for NYT Connections puzzle #1249.
Here are the four completed groups:
Yellow: Kinds of Medicine
Answers: FOLK, HERBAL, HOLISTIC, TRADITIONAL
These four words describe different approaches to medicine and healing. Folk medicine often involves remedies passed down through generations, while herbal medicine uses plants and botanical ingredients.
Holistic medicine focuses on a person’s overall well-being, while traditional medicine refers to established healing practices.
Green: Parts of a Golf Course
Answers: GREEN, ROUGH, SAND TRAP, TEE BOX
All four words describe different areas or features of a golf course.
The green is the closely cut area surrounding the hole. The rough contains longer grass, while a sand trap is a bunker filled with sand. The tee box is where golfers begin each hole.
Blue: Things Filled With Air
Answers: AIR MATTRESS, BUBBLE, TIRE, WHOOPIE CUSHION
This category focuses on objects and things that contain air.
An air mattress needs to be inflated before use, while a tire contains pressurized air. Bubbles contain trapped gas, and a whoopie cushion uses escaping air to create its familiar prank sound.
Purple: Ending in Palindromes
Answers: AFTERNOON, PATOOT, RHEOSTATS, SHREDDER
This is the cleverest category in today’s puzzle. Each word ends with a sequence of letters that reads the same forward and backward.
Here’s how the pattern works:
- AFTERNOON ends with NOON.
- PATOOT ends with TOOT.
- RHEOSTATS ends with STATS.
- SHREDDER ends with REDDER.
NOON, TOOT, STATS, and REDDER are all palindromes. That’s the hidden connection that brings these four seemingly unrelated words together.
What Is NYT Connections?
NYT Connections is a daily word puzzle from The New York Times Games. Players receive 16 words and must organize them into four groups of four based on a shared connection.
Each group has a different difficulty level, represented by four colors:
- Yellow: Usually the easiest category.
- Green: Slightly more challenging.
- Blue: Requires closer attention to the connections.
- Purple: Often involves wordplay, spelling patterns, or less obvious relationships.
You get four mistakes before the game ends, so it’s worth checking your groups carefully before submitting them.
When Does NYT Connections Reset?
A new NYT Connections puzzle becomes available every day at midnight based on your local time zone.
Players can access the daily challenge through the official New York Times Games website or its mobile app. You can also revisit previous puzzles through the game’s available archives and other puzzle resources.
Final Thoughts
Today’s NYT Connections puzzle (#1249) offers a nice mix of straightforward categories and clever wordplay. The medicine and golf course groups are easier to recognize, while the final palindrome connection requires a closer look at the spelling of each word.
The biggest trick is avoiding combinations based on surface-level similarities. Once you spot the hidden patterns, all four groups fall into place.
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