Today’s NYT Connections wall mixes moral judgment, competition, guitar hardware, and speech science. If you want to keep your streak alive without burning all four mistakes, use the structured hints below and only reveal the full groups once you’re ready.
Today’s NYT Connections #901 word list
Here are the 16 words that appear in puzzle #901:
| Word | Word | Word | Word |
|---|---|---|---|
| BEST | STRING | JUST | INTONATION |
| STRESS | FAIR | FRET | BEAT |
| RHYTHM | TAKE | RIGHT | PEG |
| PROPER | PICKUP | LOUDNESS | WORST |
As usual, these need to be sorted into four groups of four, with one correct solution.
Color-order overview for puzzle #901
Connections always resolves from easiest to hardest in this color order:
| Color | Relative difficulty | Today’s theme (short label) |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Easiest | Fitting |
| Green | Medium | Achieve victory over |
| Blue | Trickier | Parts of an electric guitar |
| Purple | Hardest | Phonetic elements of speech |
If you only want a nudge, use the category hints next. If you’re done struggling, skip to the full answers table at the end.
Category hints without spoilers
These hints name the idea behind each group without listing the exact words.
| Color | Category hint | How to think about it |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Synonyms for “appropriate” | Look for words you’d use to say something is fair or suitable for a situation. |
| Green | Ways to defeat someone | All four can work as verbs meaning “to win against” or “come out on top of.” |
| Blue | Electric guitar components | Think about what you pluck, tune, or plug in on a typical electric guitar. |
| Purple | Features of spoken language | These belong to how speech sounds: loudness, melody, and timing rather than the words themselves. |
One revealed word per group
If the broad hints aren’t enough, this set exposes a single anchor word from each category while keeping the rest hidden:
| Color | Revealed word | How it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | RIGHT | Can mean “morally correct” or “appropriate for the circumstances.” |
| Green | TAKE | In competition you might “take” a game, a set, or the win. |
| Blue | FRET | The metal strips along a guitar’s neck, used to change pitch. |
| Purple | RHYTHM | The timing and patterning of sounds in speech (or music). |
If you want to solve the wall yourself, stop here and work outward from these anchors. The next section spells out every group.
Full NYT Connections answers for November 28, 2025 (#901)
Here is the complete solution, including category names and the four words in each color group.
| Color | Category | Words in the group | Why they belong together |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow | FITTING | FAIR, JUST, PROPER, RIGHT | Each can describe something that is appropriate or morally acceptable: a fair decision, a just outcome, a proper response, the right call. |
| Green | ACHIEVE VICTORY OVER | BEAT, BEST, TAKE, WORST | Used as verbs, all mean to defeat someone or something: to beat an opponent, to best a rival, to take a match, to worst your competition. |
| Blue | PARTS OF AN ELECTRIC GUITAR | FRET, PEG, PICKUP, STRING | These are physical components of a guitar: strings are plucked, frets divide the neck, pegs (tuning pegs) tighten the strings, and pickups convert vibration into an electrical signal. |
| Purple | PHONETIC ELEMENTS OF SPEECH | INTONATION, LOUDNESS, RHYTHM, STRESS | All four describe prosodic features of spoken language: pitch contour (intonation), volume level (loudness), timing patterns (rhythm), and emphasis on particular syllables (stress). |
Why puzzle #901 can feel trickier than it looks
At a glance, many of these words can plausibly sit in more than one category, which is where mistakes usually stack up:
- FAIR, JUST, and RIGHT are obviously moral judgments, but they can also feel like victory words in everyday speech (“serve them right”). The key is that the green group demands a clean “defeat” verb sense.
- BEST and WORST look like opposites, which tempts a comparison group. Here, both serve as verbs that mean to beat someone, which is why they join BEAT and TAKE.
- RHYTHM reads musical at first and can easily be pulled toward the guitar set. It only resolves correctly once you see the other speech-related terms cohere into a phonetics theme.
If you’re working future walls without help, it often pays to:
- Lock in the most literal hardware or concrete-object set first (blue today).
- Sort strong synonyms (yellow and green here) before attempting the more abstract or technical purple category.
- Be suspicious of words that comfortably fit two ideas; leave them aside until three of a kind are unquestionably locked.
With #901 done, you can head back to the NYT Connections page once the next puzzle rolls over at midnight in your time zone.
