February 17, 2026

NYT Connections Hint - February 17, 2026

Hey there, word-wranglers! 🍜 Today’s grid ambushed me before I’d even finished my first sip of coffee—something about the combo of sauces, speed, and an ultra-sneaky purple category had me leafing through mental dictionaries like a kid cramming for a pop quiz. I may have earnestly tried to convince myself that BOMBAY was a velocity word because, you know, Bombay “rushes” forward? (Spoiler: nope.) But the second that sticky hoisin clicked into place, the whole board felt like a wok-shaped lock turning—satisfying, aromatic, and just a little bit messy. Grab your chopsticks, or at least your thinking cap, and let’s slurp our way through today’s lexical dim sum together.

Word Explanations

  • PLUM

    • Plum sauce—that sweet, tangy magenta goo that legitimizes every egg roll. My college roommate used to hoard packets in our mini-fridge; by finals week we’d squeeze it straight onto leftover pizza like culinary outlaws. Turns out it’s literally just plums, sugar, and vinegar doing a fruity three-way tango—who knew humble fruit could don a tux and become Chinese BBQ royalty?

  • LEAF

    • A single leaf can stage a dramatic fall, but as a verb “to leaf” means fluttering through pages—exactly what I do with new paperbacks, smelling that ink like it’s fresh-baked bread. Fun contradiction: leaves stand still, yet leafing is all motion. English is weird, and I’m here for it.

  • FLASH

    • Flash evokes lightning, camera bulbs, and that split-second your brain fireworks when an idea lands. It’s also the hero name of the fastest DC character—sorry, not sorry, Superman fans. Did you know a camera flash lasts roughly 1/1000 of a second? Blink and you literally miss it.

  • BUSTLE

    • Bustle sounds energetic—Victorian ladies with big dresses, commuters in Grand Central—but today it’s side-eyeing you from the “dud” category. Etymology flex: it started as “to act busily,” yet here it’s masquerading as the setup to a pun. Language, you sly thing.

  • THUMB

    • The VIP of hitchhiking digits. Thumbing a ride feels retro—like Kerouac road-trip retro—but in the puzzle it teams up with skim, flip, and leaf to make the gentlest quartet of page-turners ever. Also, pro tip: giving a “thumbs-up” in Greece can start a minor diplomatic incident, so read the room—or the road.

  • OYSTER

    • Oyster sauce: nectar of caramelized oysters, thickened into that dark glossy magic that turns veggies into restaurant-grade indulgence. I once tried to DIY it—my kitchen smelled like low-tide regret for days. Pro tip: leave it to the pros and your neighbors will thank you.

  • FLOPPY

    • Floppy takes me back to the ‘90s: clunky disk drives, dial-up screeches, and saving my three-page masterpiece in fluorescent green. Tech nostalgia aside, calling something a “flop” means epic fail—so its inclusion in the dud-pun tier is basically destiny wearing retro glasses.

  • ZIP

    • Zip is speed, but also closure—so it’s either a red-shifted blur or the stubborn sibling on your hoodie that snags at the worst moment. Ambi-word! I’ll never forget teaching my nephew to “zip it”—he literally pulled an imaginary zipper across his mouth; kids are the best literalists.

  • SKIM

    • Skimming is how I survived college lit: eyes galloping across pages like caffeinated gazelles. Scientists call it “rapid serial visual presentation,” but I call it “Sunday night panic.” Fun note: skimming stones also works—parallel meaning, opposite chill.

  • SOY

    • Sey sauce—sorry, couldn’t resist the dad pronunciation—originated in China over 2,500 years ago. Fermented soybeans, salt, and that slow umami magic. Little-known secret: a splash in chocolate cake batter deepens flavor like a spy in culinary noir. Trust me, it’s the sidekick you never saw coming.

  • DART

    • Dart equals speed plus precision—like that housefly you swat and miss seventeen times. Biologically, a hummingbird’s tongue actually darts into nectar 15 times a second; nature beat us to the punch again.

  • BOMBAY

    • Bombay pulls double duty: vibrant Indian metropolis and sapphire-blue gin icon. Fun city fact: its stock exchange—established 1875—is Asia’s oldest. Puzzle-wise it’s masquerading as a gin-swilling “bomb” (dud). I’ll drink to that pun, but maybe after I finish typing.

  • SPEED

    • Speed is the only word in the grid that literally contains “peed” (as in pedal-to-the-metal). Did you know cheetahs top out around 60 mph but tire in seconds? Humans engineered cars that can beat that, yet we still gasp at nature’s own hot-rod kitty.

  • FLIP

    • Flip feels flippant—like sarcasm in verb form. It’s also the gymnastic move I never mastered; my one attempt ended in a grass-stain autobiography. Linguistically, it’s the shortest member of today’s riffle crew, but it packs all the breezy nonchalance of a hair toss.

  • HOISIN

    • Hoisin is Cantonese for “seafood” even though it contains zero seafood—go figure. Thick, fragrant, sometimes called Chinese BBQ sauce; it’s the hoodie of sauces: comfy, versatile, and always there when you need flavor comfort food.

  • MISSUS

    • Missus, slangy twist on “the missus,” lands us smack in sitcom territory—cue laugh track. It shares DNA with “old lady” jokes, which officially slots it into the “dud” starter-pack for pun purposes. I still giggled when it clicked; wordplay dad jokes are my kryptonite.

Theme Hints

  1. RIFFLE (THROUGH)

    • Imagine standing at a magazine rack—what gentle actions get you from cover to cover without really reading?

  2. ZOOM

    • Think quick—what words feel like they should come with a rush of wind and maybe a tiny sonic boom?

  3. SAUCES IN CHINESE CUISINE

    • If your takeout bag drips with umami, these saucy suspects are probably to blame.

  4. STARTING WITH SYNONYMS FOR "DUD"

    • Peek at the first syllables—each secretly nods to an old-fashioned word for “failure” or “laughable dud.”

Answers Explanation

Click to reveal answers!

  1. RIFFLE (THROUGH)

    :FLIP,LEAF,SKIM,THUMB

    • Riffle, the polite cousin of “flip through,” unites this foursome. Thumb is literally the digit you use to fan pages; Flip is what you do impatiently during commercials; Skim feels collegiate—I used to “skim” 60 pages of Moby-Dick ten minutes before seminar (sorry, Professor!); Leaf instantly plants me in a bookstore, inhaling paper smell while browsing. All four scream casual browsing energy, just with different degrees of paper-cut risk.

  2. ZOOM

    :DART,FLASH,SPEED,ZIP

    • These four are pure velocity in verbal form. Dart makes me picture a hummingbird’s beeline to the feeder; Flash drags me back to every superhero sprint I ever doodled in sixth-grade margins; Speed is the no-nonsense member of the gang—just raw mph; and Zip practically sounds like a cartoon sound effect for something ricocheting off the walls. Put them together and you’ve got a pocket-sized thesaurus for “going fast”—no seatbelt required.

  3. SAUCES IN CHINESE CUISINE

    :HOISIN,OYSTER,PLUM,SOY

    • Chinese-takeout night in word form! Soy is the salty workhorse hiding in nearly every stir-fry; Oyster sauce brings that dark, caramelized depth you can’t quite replicate; Plum slides in with its sweet-sour royalty vibe—hello, duck pancakes; and hoisin—that glossy, garlicky hug—basically bottled comfort. Taste-wise they span salty, sweet, and umami, so together they form the Fantastic Four of condiments on my lazy Susan.

  4. STARTING WITH SYNONYMS FOR "DUD"

    :BOMBAY,BUSTLE,FLOPPY,MISSUS

    • Welcome to Pun-ville: each word starts with an old-school synonym for “dud.” Bombay—Bombay gin, aka the booze that can turn any cocktail into a bit of a bust if you overdo it; Bustle sounds like the frantic energy of a fool’s errand; Floppy—remember the disk that always seemed to corrupt at the worst moment? Classic fail; Missus as in “the old missus,” playful slang that can poke fun at a sitcom husband. String the first letters together and you get B-B-F-M… which isn’t a secret code, just proof the puzzle makers love a good dad-joke chuckle.

My brain is halfway to dumpling-coma mode after untangling this board. I definitely spent too long trying to convince myself that FLIP belonged with Flash/Speed/Zip—because, you know, flips are fast? (Nice try, past-me.) When the sauces finally locked in and the last purple tiles snapped together, I felt that fizzy little victory rush—kind of like popping open a new bottle of soy. If today’s grid had you pacing around the kitchen at 6 a.m. searching for answers, welcome to the club; we meet by the wok and share dumplings. Tomorrow will throw brand-new curve-balls at us, but tonight let’s savor the win, slather on some extra hoisin, and zip off to bed. Happy connecting, and may your noodles—and your word ladders—never tangle!