Stuck on today’s Connections? Below you’ll find layered help — from gentle hints to the full solution — for Friday, September 19, 2025. If you want to play first, go to the official puzzle on the New York Times Games site (Connections).

Today’s 16 words

  • TIGER
  • NOSE
  • MASCARA
  • PACE
  • RATE
  • BLUSH
  • DYE
  • CLIP
  • SWEAT
  • TOWEL
  • SCORE
  • TRAIL
  • RANK
  • FIDGET
  • STOCKINGS
  • GRADE

Light hints (no spoilers)

  • Yellow: Measures of how well something went.
  • Green: Behaviors or reactions when you’re on edge.
  • Blue: Things that can “run” in annoying, everyday ways.
  • Purple: Each pairs cleanly after the word “paper.”

Need a nudge inside each set? Reveal one member per group:

  • Yellow example: GRADE
  • Green example: PACE
  • Blue example: MASCARA
  • Purple example: TOWEL

Theme reveals (categories only)

  • Yellow: Evaluate
  • Green: Exhibit Nervousness
  • Blue: Things That Can Run, Annoyingly
  • Purple: Paper ___

Full answers (spoilers)

  • Yellow — Evaluate: GRADE, RANK, RATE, SCORE
  • Green — Exhibit Nervousness: BLUSH, FIDGET, PACE, SWEAT
  • Blue — Things That Can Run, Annoyingly: DYE, MASCARA, NOSE, STOCKINGS
  • Purple — Paper ___: CLIP, TIGER, TOWEL, TRAIL

Why these connections work

  • Evaluate: Four verbs/nouns used to assess performance or quality.
  • Exhibit Nervousness: Common tells — physical reactions or restless behaviors.
  • Things That Can Run, Annoyingly: Dye can run in fabric, mascara can run, a nose can run, and stockings famously get runs.
  • Paper ___: The compounds are familiar: paper clip, paper tiger, paper towel, paper trail.

Quick tips for future puzzles

  • Sort by part of speech first. Today’s yellow and green sets skewed heavily toward verbs and actions.
  • Test “fill-in-the-blank” patterns. Spotting “paper ___” quickly collapses the hardest tier.
  • Watch for decoys that nearly fit. “BLUSH” and “MASCARA” look like a set — until “NOSE” pushes you to think about “things that run.”
  • Remember the color ramp: Yellow (easiest), then Green, Blue, and Purple (trickiest).

When you’re ready to try again, load up the next daily grid on Connections.