NY Times publishes July 31, 2026 hints for Connections, Strands and other games

On July 31, 2026 the New York Times released hint and answer guides for several of its daily online games. For the Connections puzzle (game #1146) the four categories were “Construct” (fashion, model, mold, shape), “Super Mario figures” (dinosaur, mushroom, plumber, princess), “Fruits plus starting letter” (dapple, jdate, slime, spear) and “Starting with merriments” (cheerios, fungus, gleek, joystick). A separate Connections Sports Edition (game #676) offered groups such as “Punt”, “Extend”, “Truck” and “Judy”. The Pips domino‑logic game was detailed with zone conditions and full solutions for Easy, Medium and Hard boards. The Strands word‑search game’s theme was “Summer sign”, with the spangram “Leo the Lion” and theme words including BOLD, DRAMATIC, BOSSY, LOYAL, GENEROUS and CHARMING. The Mini Crossword for July 31 provided across and down answers ranging from “LIVE” to “IVIE”. Multiple sites republished these hints, each summarising the same daily puzzles released by the New York Times.