CNET published hints and answers for the April 14, 2026 NYT Connections puzzle, No. 1,038, and the day’s game was described as rather tricky. One clue for the blue group pointed players toward something they might try to do with a pinball machine.
The yellow group was things stored by a browser, with the answers bookmark, cache, cookie and history. That set sat alongside boxing terms — bell, gloves, ring and round — and a tilt category made up of lean, list, pitch and tip.
The final group was free ____, which was completed by lance, mason, style and way. For anyone trying to work through the grid before seeing the solutions, the phrasing gave away just enough without handing over the board.
The puzzle-hints format is part of a recurring daily routine built around the Times Games section, and the publication also pointed readers to the Connections Bot, a feature similar to the one used for Wordle. Registered Times Games users can use it to track progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of perfect scores and win streak.
The piece also looked back at two earlier tough Connections boards, including No. 5, which used mood, record, table and volleyball, and No. 4, which used egg, juror, month and rose. That history matters because it shows how quickly the game can turn from routine to stubborn, and why a fresh set of hints can still draw a large crowd each morning.
For April 14, the answers were clear enough once the categories snapped into place: browser storage, boxing, tilt and free ____. That was the day’s real story, and it is why the Nyt Connections Hints Today search kept pointing players to the same conclusion.
