Nyt Connections Answers for Feb. 25 and Sports Edition No. 520

Emerson Raymont

Published: February 25, 2026 5:18 AM ET

nyt connections answers for the Feb. 25 puzzle #990 list four groupings: care for (baby, foster, mother, nurse), elementary (basic, key, primary, principal), Jameses (Brown, Cook, Dean, Harden) and a hidden-words category made up of alkaline (line), Declan (clan), diatribe (tribe) and napkin (kin).

Nyt Connections Answers for Feb. 25

Puzzle #990, dated Feb. 25, 2026, again challenged players with a purple category that relies on spotting hidden words inside larger words. The purple group’s theme—ending in family words—paired four grid entries with embedded family terms: alkaline (line), Declan (clan), diatribe (tribe) and napkin (kin). The care-for group assembled the four caregiving words baby, foster, mother and nurse, while the elementary cluster included basic, key, primary and principal. One category grouped four names tied to Jameses: Brown, Cook, Dean and Harden.

Connections: Sports Edition No. 520 answers

The sports-themed puzzle No. 520 delivered four sport-linked sets. The stiff-hit baseball group consisted of BELT, BLISTER, HAMMER and TATTOO. An orange-and-black teams category contained BENGALS, FLYERS, GIANTS and OKLAHOMA STATE. A Montreal-associated set featured 1976 OLYMPICS, CANADIENS, EXPOS and YOUPPI!. The fourth category, a fill-in-the-blank Derby theme, linked HOME RUN, KENTUCKY, MERSEYSIDE and ROLLER.

The Sports Edition is presented as a daily board that asks players to group 16 words into four color-coded categories; one color ranges from straightforward to tricky. The next Sports Edition puzzle becomes available at midnight in your time zone.

Recap: Feb. 21 puzzle #986 and tools for players

Players who track nyt connections answers may also revisit the Feb. 21 puzzle #986, which grouped words into experience (background, history, life, past), attendance status (absent, excused, late, present), commentary about results (great, perfect, phew, solid) and a playful car-brands-plus-two-letters category made up of audits (Audi), Dodgers (Dodge), Infinitive (Infiniti) and Minion (Mini).

There is also a Connections Bot that analyzes player boards and returns a numeric score. Registered players can follow their progress and see stats such as number of puzzles completed, win rate, count of perfect scores and current win streak.

For players eager to keep solving, the confirmed next availability is the midnight release of the next daily puzzle in your time zone; the Sports Edition noted its next puzzle will appear at that time.