NEW YORK — Saturday's edition of The New York Times' Connections puzzle sent players hunting through categories built around synonyms for exhaustion, segments of something larger, and two closely related wordplay twists involving hidden units of length and secret pursuit, in a grid that puzzle columnists described as unusually tricky given how similarly two of its categories were structured.

Connections, published daily by the Times as part of its expanding suite of word games, presents 16 words or phrases that must be sorted into four hidden groups of four. Each group shares a common theme, and the puzzle is color-coded by difficulty, with yellow generally representing the most straightforward category and purple the most challenging. Players are permitted up to four incorrect guesses before the game ends.

Saturday's puzzle, numbered 1161, organized its 16 entries into four categories: words meaning exhausted, words meaning a segment or portion, words ending in hidden units of length, and words ending in synonyms for following someone secretly.

The yellow group, typically the easiest of the four, centered on words describing a state of exhaustion. It included "beat," "fried," "spent" and "worn out," four terms commonly used informally to describe feeling completely drained of energy. Puzzle commentary noted this category rewarded straightforward vocabulary recognition,........

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