NYT Connections Hints & Answers for July 22, 2025 – Solve All Four Categories Today

If today’s NYT Connections puzzle (#772) left you staring at the screen, you’re not alone. Tuesday, 22 July 2025 delivers one of the trickier boards in recent memory, and puzzlers everywhere are hunting for just enough guidance to keep their streak alive. Below you’ll find graduated help—from gentle nudges to the complete solution—plus expert tactics to sharpen your approach for tomorrow’s grid. What to Know Before You Start NYT Connections refreshes daily at midnight ET, challenging solvers to group 16 seemingly unrelated words into four secret categories of escalating difficulty. Tap four words, submit, and watch the color-coded grid reveal whether your guess is correct. You get only four mistakes, so efficient deduction is everything. Because puzzle #772 launched in the early hours of Tuesday, the answer set below applies through 11:59 p.m. ET today. Release Times by Region • 12:00 a.m. Eastern • 9:00 p.m. Pacific (previous evening) • 5:00 a.m. BST • 2:00 p.m. AEST These times matter if you’re preserving a streak across time zones; the grid rolls over precisely at 0:00 a.m. Eastern. Quick, Spoiler-Free Hints Need just a nudge? The four hidden themes, ordered easiest to hardest, can be described as: Yellow: Impolite boldness Green: Cushions against trouble Blue: …and away we go! Purple: Items that bounce Still stumped? A second-level clue is in the “anchor” words that practically announce their group once you see them: CHEEK, SOFTEN, WHOOPIE, POGO. Full Answers for NYT Connections #772 (Major Spoilers) Yellow — SASSINESS: ATTITUDE, CHEEK, LIP, MOUTH Green — MITIGATE: CUSHION, DAMPEN, SOFTEN, TEMPER Blue — STARTING EXCLAMATIONS: AND, AWAY, HEY, READY Purple — ___ STICK: GLUE, JOYSTICK, POGO, DRUM Solution analysis: The blue set misleads many solvers because the words “AND” and “AWAY” feel too small to be thematic; look for idiomatic phrases rather than parts of speech. Similarly, “CUSHION” belongs in Green, not Purple, once you recall its verb sense (“cushion the blow”). Three Proven Strategies to Improve Your Win Rate 1. Sort by syllables and word length first. Visually grouping one-syllable words (LIP, MOUTH) often exposes hidden patterns. 2. Identify “glue” words that can precede or follow many others (STICK, BALL, BOARD). They usually anchor the toughest purple category. 3. Spend your four mistakes early. Deliberate testing of a plausible set reveals valuable feedback while you still have guesses to burn. Community Reaction Threads on X (formerly Twitter) show a 60/40 split between solvers who cleared the grid in under five minutes and those who burned through three strikes before spotting the JOYSTICK/POGO duo. Streamer “CrosswordKev” called it “the first truly fiendish Tuesday of July,” noting that miniature connector words often yield the highest error count. Why Today’s Puzzle Matters NYT Connections continues to dominate social feeds, sometimes surpassing Wordle and Spelling Bee in share volume. Tuesday spikes are typical as commuters tackle the grid on mobile, but #772’s tricky blue category pushed engagement even higher, according to data scraped from TikTok’s #NYTConnections hashtag between 6 a.m. and noon ET. Looking Ahead Wednesday’s board (#773) will publish at midnight ET. Historically, mid-week puzzles skew slightly easier, so expect fresh wordplay but a more forgiving solve rate. Bookmark this page; we’ll update with hints, category teasers, and the complete solution the moment the new grid drops. Remember, half the fun of NYT Connections is the “aha!” moment; use hints sparingly, share your path to victory with friends, and keep that streak alive.