NYT Connections #1041
Hints, category titles, and full answers for Friday, April 17, 2026
Connections Hint #1041 — April 17, 2026
Connections Walkthrough — April 17, 2026
A breakdown of every category from the April 17, 2026 puzzle, the trap words designed to fool players, and what made it tricky.
Group-by-group breakdown (easiest to hardest)
- VEGETABLE PARTS
You can group BULB, LEAF, ROOT, and STEM as produce anatomy before chasing broader meanings.
- PARTS OF A PIANO
HAMMER, KEY, PEDAL, and STRING are concrete hardware you can picture inside or attached to a piano.
- PREVAILING
COMMON, DOMINANT, GENERAL, and POPULAR all describe what has broad sway or acceptance.
- SECOND HALVES OF DRINK NAMES
After the literal groups, SODA, STORMY, TAN, and TONIC complete recognizable drink names.
The trap words that fool most players
Words placed in this puzzle to make one category look like another.
- KEYlooks like · PREVAILINGactually · PARTS OF A PIANO
Key can mean crucial or leading, which nudges you toward the dominance words.
- STRINGlooks like · VEGETABLE PARTSactually · PARTS OF A PIANO
You might think of string beans while sorting produce-related words.
What makes this puzzle clever
You get two anatomy-style sets, one natural and one musical; separating literal objects from adjective meanings helps.
About this puzzle
This is the complete solution to NYT Connections puzzle #1041, originally published on Friday, April 17, 2026. The four categories ranged from VEGETABLE PARTS (the easiest, yellow group) through SECOND HALVES OF DRINK NAMES (the trickiest, purple group, which usually involves wordplay or hidden patterns).
You can browse our complete Connections archive for every past puzzle since the game launched in June 2023, or jump to today's puzzle for the latest hints.