You’ve woken up, grabbed your coffee, and opened the New York Times Games app only to stare at sixteen words that seem to have absolutely nothing in common. Or, even worse, they have too much in common. That’s the classic Sunday trap. Today is January 18, 2026, and if you are looking for the NYT Connections hint to save your streak, you aren't alone.
Connections is basically a psychological experiment disguised as a word game. Wyna Liu and the editorial team love to throw "red herrings" at us—words that fit into two or three different categories—just to see if we'll bite. Today's board is a prime example of that. You see a word like "BILL" and your brain immediately goes to money. You see "PRICE" and you think, "Okay, that’s also money." But wait, "GRANT" is a name, but it’s also a form of funding.
Stop right there.
If you start clicking those financial terms, you’re going to lose a life. I've been tracking these puzzles for years, and the Sunday ones are notoriously "punny" or heavy on the trivia. Today's puzzle, #952, leans heavily into natural history and old-school entertainment.
The NYT Connections Hint You Actually Need Today
Sometimes you don't want the full answer. You just want a nudge.
Honestly, the best way to approach the January 18 board is to look for the parts of things. Not the things themselves, but the components. If you look at the grid and see words like FEATHERS or WEBBING, you’re halfway to the easiest category of the day.
Here is a breakdown of the themes without giving away every single word immediately:
- Yellow Category: Think about the anatomy of a specific pond-dwelling bird.
- Green Category: These are all synonyms for causing absolute destruction.
- Blue Category: If you were holding a physical book in your hand, you'd find these on the outside.
- Purple Category: This one is the "Classic Hollywood" trap. It’s all about surnames of legendary leading men.
The overlap today is brutal. BILL is the word that ruins everyone’s game. It fits with the duck (the beak), but it also feels like it should go with PRICE or TOTAL. But "TOTAL" is actually a verb here. Think "to total a car."
Why the January 18 Puzzle is Tripping People Up
Most players fail today because they try to force the "money" category. It’s not there.
Instead of looking for a group about payments, look at the word TOTAL again. If you total something, you wreck it. You DAMAGE it. You BREAK it. That is your Green category. It's a "synonym" group, which is usually where the game hides its most common words to distract you from the more specialized groups.
Then there’s the PRICE and GRANT situation. If you are a movie buff, you might realize these aren't nouns. They are people. Vincent Price. Cary Grant. When you see PECK (Gregory Peck) and COOPER (Gary Cooper), the Purple category finally clicks. But if you don't know your black-and-white cinema, this group is basically impossible to guess.
January 18 Connections Answers (The Full Reveal)
If you're down to your last guess and you just want to keep the streak alive, here is the full solution for today’s puzzle.
Yellow: Features of a Duck
- BILL
- FEATHERS
- WEBBING
- WINGS
Green: Destroy
- BREAK
- DAMAGE
- TOTAL
- WRECK
Blue: Found on a Book Jacket
- AUTHOR
- QUOTE
- SYNOPSIS
- TITLE
Purple: Classic Hollywood Actors
- COOPER
- GRANT
- PECK
- PRICE
How to Get Better at NYT Connections
Look, nobody is perfect at this. Even the best word-game nerds get stuck. The trick is to never submit your first "obvious" group unless you can find the other three groups too.
The "Shuffle" button is your best friend. Seriously. Use it. Our brains are hardwired to find patterns in the order words are presented. By hitting shuffle, you break those false connections. Also, try saying the words out loud. Sometimes a word like BILL sounds different when you're not just reading it in a list of financial terms.
One last thing: pay attention to the parts of speech. Sometimes a word is a noun in one category but must be a verb in another. Today, TOTAL was the verb that unlocked the Green group.
If you’re feeling frustrated, take a break. The puzzle isn't going anywhere until midnight. Often, if you look at the board with fresh eyes after an hour, the "Hollywood Actors" or "Book Jacket" themes will jump out at you instantly.
For tomorrow's puzzle, try to identify the "fill-in-the-blank" category first. Those are almost always the Purple ones and they are the easiest to solve if you can just find that one missing link.
👉 See also: Persona 3 Reload Theurgy: How to Actually Break the Game’s Combat Loop
Keep your streak alive. See you for the next one.