These three words had NYT Connections players second-guessing themselves on August 10, 2025. Sway, pull, and weight look like they belong in completely separate categories. They do not. All three point to the same thing: INFLUENCE.
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The Answer: INFLUENCE (Yellow Group)
In NYT Connections Game #791, four words were grouped under the Yellow category, which is the easiest difficulty tier:
JUICE — PULL — SWAY — WEIGHT Category: INFLUENCE
The words themselves are straightforward. The connection between them is what catches players off guard.
What Each Word Means in This Context
All four are informal terms for clout, leverage, or the ability to make things happen. Here is how each one actually works in everyday speech:
| Word | Common Usage | What It Signals |
|---|---|---|
| Pull | “She has the pull to get it done.” | Direct access, ability to make things happen |
| Weight | “His opinion carries a lot of weight.” | Credibility, status, people listen |
| Sway | “Nothing could sway the committee.” | Power to shift opinions or decisions |
| Juice | “That producer has real juice in the industry.” | Raw power, connections, insider status |
- Pull is the most common of the four. Pulling strings, having pull with someone in charge — it signals access and back-channel influence.
- Weight leans toward earned credibility. When someone’s word carries weight, decisions move because of it.
- Sway is a little different from the others. It describes the act of changing minds rather than simply holding power. You sway a vote, sway public sentiment, sway a negotiation.
- Juice is the wildcard. It is American slang, heavy in entertainment and political circles, and the one word in this group that players are most likely to misread as a decoy.
Why This Group Caught So Many Players Off Guard
The Yellow group is supposed to be the most straightforward, but this one had a built-in trap.
Each word in this group has a more obvious, literal meaning that grabs attention first:
- Juice is a beverage. In a puzzle with words like PULP and CONCENTRATE also on the board, grouping those three felt like the natural move.
- Weight is a unit of physical measurement.
- Sway is a physical motion, like a tree in the wind.
- Pull has more dictionary definitions than almost any word in English.
The NYT puzzle team leaned into that confusion on purpose. With PULP, CONCENTRATE, and JUICE all visible at once, players kept trying to build a “drinks” or “orange juice” category. That never came together because JUICE belonged here, in the INFLUENCE group.
This is one of the more well-constructed Yellow groups in recent Connections history — easy in hindsight, but genuinely difficult in the moment.
Full NYT Connections Answers: Game #791 (August 10, 2025)
| Color | Category | Words |
|---|---|---|
| 🟨 Yellow | INFLUENCE | JUICE, PULL, SWAY, WEIGHT |
| 🟩 Green | AMASS | CLUSTER, COLLECT, CONCENTRATE, GROUP |
| 🟦 Blue | KINDS OF FICTION | FAN, HISTORICAL, PULP, SCIENCE |
| 🟪 Purple | STARTING WITH MATH & SCIENCE CLASSES | BIOPIC, CALCIUM, CHEMISE, TRIGLYCERIDE |
What Is NYT Connections?
NYT Connections is a daily word puzzle from The New York Times. Each day, players get 16 words and must sort them into four groups of four, where each group shares a hidden link or theme. The four groups are color-coded from Yellow (easiest) to Purple (hardest), and one wrong guess costs you a chance. The game resets every day at midnight and is free to play on the NYT Games website and app.
Sway, pull, and weight are three words that live quietly in everyday speech as ways to describe power without ever using the word itself. That is exactly what made this NYT Connections group both tricky and satisfying — once the answer clicked, it was hard to unsee.
