Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Feb. 21, #986
Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Feb. 21 #986.
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Today’s NYT Connections puzzle features another of those purple categories where you need to look for hidden words inside of other words. It can be a real stumper. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.
The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.
Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time
Hints for today’s Connections groups
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Yellow group hint: Rookies don’t have this.
Green group hint: Call the roll.
Blue group hint: How’d you do today?
Purple group hint: Vroom-vroom, but with a twist.
Answers for today’s Connections groups
Yellow group: Experience.
Green group: Attendance status.
Blue group: Commentary about your Connections results.
Purple group: Car brands plus two letters.
Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words
What are today’s Connections answers?
The completed NYT Connections puzzle for Feb. 21, 2026.
NYT/Screenshot by CNETThe yellow words in today’s Connections
The theme is experience. The four answers are background, history, life and past.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is attendance status. The four answers are absent, excused, late and present.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is commentary about your Connections results. The four answers are great, perfect, phew and solid.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is car brands plus two letters. The four answers are audits (Audi), Dodgers (Dodge), Infinitive (Infiniti) and Minion (Mini).
