Connections today answer: Solutions for Feb. 18, 2026 (Puzzle #983)

Published Feb. 18, 2026, 12: 00 AM ET — The daily Connections puzzle for Feb. 18 delivered a retro-leaning set with word groups that leaned on hairstyles, vintage slang, poultry types and variations on a common noun. If you got stuck, the complete breakdown below shows the four groupings and offers quick tips to spot them faster next time.

How the puzzle played today

Today’s 4x4 grid favored nostalgia. Two of the four categories were overtly retro, making those clusters pop for players who keep an ear out for older pop-culture phrasing. The other groups mixed a straightforward animal descriptor category with a more playful fill-in-the-blank set built around a shared noun. Difficulty varied: a couple of groupings revealed themselves quickly, while one cluster required a slightly lateral leap.

Hints and quick strategies

If you prefer to tease out answers rather than jump straight to the solutions, try these targeted approaches that would have helped on Feb. 18:

• Scan for thematic language. When multiple words evoke a single era or cultural vibe, they’re often grouped together. Today that paid off for retro slang and hair directives.
• Look for grammatical pairing. A blank-plus-word clue—like "_____ cream"—usually points to noun modifiers that slot neatly into a short list of established collocations.
• Don’t ignore animal or breed descriptors. Words that seem specific and concrete (bantam, leghorn, crested) frequently form a tidy category around species, breed or type.
• Use elimination. Once two groups are identified, examine remaining words for overlap or obvious mismatches; that often forces the final grouping into view.

Complete answers and groupings

Below are the four correct groups for Puzzle #983 and the words that belong in each. Spoiler warning if you prefer to solve before seeing solutions.

• Retro hair directives: crimp, curl, feather, tease
• Retro slang for "cool": bad, fly, rad, wicked
• Chicken descriptors: bantam, crested, free-range, leghorn
• "_____ cream": heavy, shaving, sour, topical

Those four categories made for a satisfying mix of straightforward and nostalgic clues. The hair directives group leaned on styling verbs that were particularly prominent in past decades, while the slang cluster brought together short, punchy adjectives long used to praise something as fashionable or impressive. The poultry descriptors were the most literal grouping, and the cream-related set was a classic fill-in-the-blank that hinges on varied meanings of the word "cream"—from culinary to cosmetic to pharmaceutical.

If you play daily, tracking which kinds of groupings recur—period language, culinary terms, animal descriptions—will sharpen your instincts. The grid refreshes at midnight local time, so there’s always a new challenge on the horizon.