Today’s NYT Connections puzzle (#941 for January 7, 2026) clusters its 16 words around lookalikes, investments, flags, and things you literally press. If you’re done wrestling with red herrings like the fake “vampire” set, here’s the full breakdown.
Today’s Connections word list (#941)
The board you saw today contained these 16 words:
- STAKE
- STAR
- WINE
- MIRROR
- STRIPE
- GARLIC
- INTEREST
- CROSS
- SHARE
- CIDER
- DOUBLE
- TROUSERS
- CRESCENT
- CLONE
- CONCERN
- RINGER
Several of these tempt you into grouping them by theme in the wrong way. STAKE, GARLIC, CROSS, and MIRROR all suggest a horror movie, but they never sit together in a real category.
Yellow group (easiest): DOPPELGÄNGER
The yellow category focuses on lookalikes and near-exact copies. The four words are:
- CLONE
- DOUBLE
- MIRROR
- RINGER
Each term can describe someone or something that looks just like another person. A CLONE is a direct copy, a body DOUBLE stands in on camera, a MIRROR image suggests perfect symmetry, and a RINGER is a person who looks “dead ringer” identical to someone else.
Green group: PORTION
The green category reuses everyday vocabulary from business and money to describe a share of something. The four words are:
- CONCERN
- INTEREST
- SHARE
- STAKE
Each can mean a slice of involvement or ownership. A business CONCERN is an enterprise; to have an INTEREST or STAKE in a company is to own part of it; and a SHARE is a discrete unit of that ownership.
Blue group: COMMON FLAG SYMBOLS
Blue steps away from finance and into vexillology — the study of flags. The four words are:
- CRESCENT
- CROSS
- STAR
- STRIPE
These shapes appear on national flags worldwide. CRESCENT and STAR dominate many designs in the Middle East, CROSS is central to the flags of countries like Switzerland or the UK, and STRIPES are a defining feature of flags such as those of the United States and France.
Purple group (hardest): PRESSED USING A PRESS
The purple group is the trickiest. It hinges on literal pressing — with a fruit press, a garlic press, or a trouser press. The four words are:
- CIDER
- GARLIC
- TROUSERS
- WINE
Apples are pressed to make CIDER, grapes are pressed to produce WINE, GARLIC is often put through a dedicated press in the kitchen, and TROUSERS are pressed with heat and pressure to create a sharp crease.
Why the “vampire” set doesn’t work
A lot of players will have noticed that STAKE, GARLIC, CROSS, and MIRROR all read like props from a vampire story. That’s intentional misdirection. Each of those words belongs somewhere else: GARLIC and TROUSERS are in the press category, CROSS and STAR are used on flags, and STAKE links to ownership alongside SHARE, INTEREST, and CONCERN. When a cluster feels too on-the-nose, it’s often a trap like this.
How to approach similar Connections puzzles
When a board leans on overlapping themes like this one, a few patterns help:
Step 1: Lock down clean synonym sets first. Words like CLONE, DOUBLE, MIRROR, and RINGER all clearly point to lookalikes with no leftover fifth candidate, which makes them a solid starting group.
Step 2: Reassign ambiguous words by context. STAKE fits horror imagery, but it also has a precise financial meaning that lines up with INTEREST, SHARE, and CONCERN much more cleanly.
Step 3: Check for visual or symbolic categories. Shapes like STAR, CROSS, CRESCENT, and STRIPE can all exist in many contexts, but they line up especially well once you think about flag designs rather than geometry in general.
Step 4: Save the most abstract or odd-feeling group for last. GARLIC, TROUSERS, CIDER, and WINE don’t obviously belong together until you think about physical tools used to press or flatten them, which is exactly the sort of lateral step purple categories often require.
Once all four groups are in place — DOPPELGÄNGER, PORTION, COMMON FLAG SYMBOLS, and PRESSED USING A PRESS — puzzle #941 falls neatly into place, and the apparent vampire theme turns out to be nothing more than a cleverly staged distraction.
