November 20’s NYT Connections served up 16 words that split into four clean groups of four. Today’s mix leaned on short fruit/food names, famous surnames, lexical endings that hide smaller location words, and a playful “funny” cluster—below you’ll find hints followed by the full answers.

NYT Connections Puzzle Overview: November 20, 2025

The grid offered neat thematic splits: a straightforward "parts" group, a cluster of verbs meaning light contact or movement, a set focused on sticking/fixing, and a playful quartet that sounded like letter names. Solvers who heard the pronunciations quickly separated the tricky fourth group from the rest.

NYT Connections Hints: November 20, 2025

Category 1:
  • Think synonyms that mean to fasten or attach.
  • Often used when repairing things or applying materials.
  • Can be both temporary or permanent actions.
  • Picture wallpaper, glue, or construction tasks.
Category 2:
  • Verbs that imply light contact or gentle movement.
  • Often used for brushing, skimming, or soft touching.
  • Could describe how you move a hand, tool, or object.
  • Think gentle motion rather than heavy impact.
Category 3:
  • Terms from dental anatomy and tooth structure.
  • Includes surface coverings and internal tissue.
  • Words a dentist or biology text would use.
  • Think crown, layers, inner pulp, and supporting parts.
Category 4:
  • Each word sounds like a pair of spoken letters.
  • The pronunciation mimics two-letter names when said aloud.
  • It’s a phonetic grouping — listen for letter sounds.
  • Say the options out loud to spot the pattern.

NYT Connections Answers: November 20, 2025

Here are the answers, grouped by category.

Category 1:
Category 2:
Category 3:
Category 4:

Conclusion & Quick Strategy Tip

Today’s Connections balanced concrete categories with a playful phonetic twist, so it felt approachable but required listening for the punny group. Many solvers probably enjoyed the satisfying “aha” when the sound-based group clicked.

Quick tip: read the full list aloud early to catch homophones — hearing words often separates sound-based groups from literal categories.