May 14 Connections No. 1,068 yields four clue groups — Connections — The New York Times

Connections puzzle No. 1,068 for May 14, 2026 came with four hints and four answers, and the purple category leaned on hidden words inside phrases. That made the day’s help page more useful than a bare solution grid for anyone still working through the board.

Premonition and phone modes

The completed puzzle centered on premonition, with gut feeling, hunch, intuition and sixth sense grouped together. The cell phone modes set was do not disturb, ring, silent and vibrate, a clean category that narrowed the board quickly once a player spotted the pattern.

Those two groups sat alongside bad things to do in modern dating, which pulled together breadcrumb, catfish, ghost and love bomb. That category gave the puzzle a more contemporary edge than the usual wordplay alone, and it separated social behavior from the simpler phone and intuition sets.

Air Cairo and The Others

The purple category was the one built around phrases whose second words include their first word, and it was described as easier than usual. Air Cairo, All Hallows, arm warmer and The Others fit that structure, which rewarded players who looked for embedded word patterns instead of direct definitions.

For readers playing on May 14, the practical move was simple: use the published hints to sort the board, then check the completed groups against the four categories if a grid stalled. Registered Times Games users could also track puzzles completed, win rate, perfect scores and win streak after finishing the day’s game.

Times Games progress

The answer set gives players a full reset point for No. 1,068, and the extra scoring tools make the puzzle feel less like a one-off and more like a daily record. If a board breaks early, the useful step is to compare the remaining words against the four published group themes before forcing a guess.