NYT Connections Hints and Answers for Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026 (#1239): Teeth, Love and Four Dog Words

Today’s Connections from The New York Times (NYT) is puzzle #1239, for Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, edited by Wyna Liu. One group is kinds of teeth, one is kinds of love, one is people devoted to something, and one is a wordplay group built on words that mean soaked. Four of the words suggest dogs, which makes the board harder than it looks. Below are two levels of hints for each color, then the full solution and an explanation of the overlaps in a marked spoiler section.

Today’s 16 words

Head, Tripping, Canine, Lover, Doggy, Self, Maturated, Puppy, Hound, Incisor, Brotherly, Bicuspid, Unrequited, Trenched, Molar, Fiend

How the game works

Sort the 16 entries into four groups of four. You can make four mistakes. The groups run from yellow to green, blue and purple, with purple the group that depends most on wordplay.

Hints for each group

Yellow

• Hint 1

  Things you find in your mouth.
• Hint 2

  Four names for types of teeth, from the ones at the front that cut to the ones at the back that grind.

Green

• Hint 1

  Ways to describe an emotion.
• Hint 2

  The feeling a sibling has, the feeling for a young dog, the feeling for yourself, and a feeling the other person does not return.

Blue

• Hint 1

  Each word can name a person who is devoted to something.
• Hint 2

  Picture a news ___, a coffee ___, a gear ___ or a book ___.

Purple

• Hint 1

  Each entry looks odd on its own. Change the first letter and it becomes a word meaning very wet.
• Hint 2

  Two of the new words start with S and two start with D.

Solving tips

Start with yellow, because the teeth theme is clear. Be careful with Canine, which also suggests a dog. Hound and Puppy are the same kind of trap, since each fits a dog theme but belongs elsewhere. Leave purple for last: once the other three groups are placed, the four odd words left over are easy to check by swapping their first letters.

Keep a streak log on our printable weekly calendar or the November 2026 printable calendar.

More of today’s puzzles: Wordle hints, Strands hints and Pips hints.

Today’s Connections answers (spoilers)

Stop here if you still want to solve it yourself.

• Yellow, Kinds of Teeth: Bicuspid, Canine, Incisor, Molar
• Green, Kinds of Love: Brotherly, Puppy, Self, Unrequited
• Blue, Enthusiast: Fiend, Head, Hound, Lover
• Purple, Synonyms for ‘Soaked’ with First Letter Changed: Doggy, Maturated, Trenched, Tripping

1. Kinds of TeethBicuspid, Canine, Incisor, Molar
2. Kinds of LoveBrotherly, Puppy, Self, Unrequited
3. EnthusiastFiend, Head, Hound, Lover
4. Synonyms for ‘Soaked’ with First Letter ChangedDoggy, Maturated, Trenched, Tripping

Why the traps worked

Four dog words. Canine, Doggy, Hound and Puppy each point to a dog, and each is in a different group: Canine with the teeth, Puppy with the kinds of love, Hound with the enthusiasts and Doggy with the soaked words.

Lover. Lover sits next to the love group, but it belongs with Fiend, Head and Hound as someone devoted to a thing.

The soaked words. Doggy becomes soggy, Maturated becomes saturated, Trenched becomes drenched and Tripping becomes dripping.

We checked the solution against the puzzle’s official data before posting. Puzzle #1240 arrives at midnight.

Yesterday's Connections answer

The four groups in Connections on Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026, easiest to hardest:

• Yellow, Words Meaning Good That Sound Bad: Gnarly, Killer, Sick, Wicked
• Green, Martini Specifications: Dirty, Dry, Shaken, Up
• Blue, Things with Strings: Guitar, Marionette, Tassel, Tennis Racket
• Purple, Starting with Dog Commands: Downfall, Shakespeare, Sitcom, Staycation

Yesterday's hints and full solution.