FOURSURE
September 7, 2026 Puzzle Breakdown
Four groups, four words each — here's the connections between today's words.
How everyone did today
Stephen King books
Carrie, Misery, The shining, Cujo
We start things off on the gentle side with a quartet of classic horror novels, all penned by Stephen King. Whether you picture a rabid Saint Bernard, an isolated hotel, a telekinetic prom queen, or an overzealous superfan, these iconic titles are pure King through and through. If you stumbled here, you might need a trip to the local library.
Departments in a large company
IT, HR, Legal, Operations
Anyone who has navigated modern corporate bureaucracy should recognize IT, HR, Legal, and Operations as standard divisions keeping the machine running. They form the second group today, requiring little more than a quick glance at the company org chart to assemble. Consider it a brief, mandatory HR-approved detour before moving on to the trickier halves of the board.
Paint ___
Thinner, Brush, Ball, Pot
Slapping paint in front of each of these gives you a common compound or phrase, from the messy fun of a paintball or paint pot to the practical clean-up of a paintbrush and paint thinner. If you got bogged down trying to connect these by their literal hardware-store uses, you walked right into the intended trap. As the penultimate group of the day, it required looking past what the objects do and focusing on the word that precedes them.
Movies starring Ewan McGregor
Doctor Sleep, Trainspotting, Moulin Rouge!, Christopher Robin
The hardest group of the day brings together four vastly different corners of cinema, all united by their leading man. Whether you remember him surviving Edinburgh, singing in Paris, taking a grown-up stroll through the Hundred Acre Wood, or confronting his childhood demons at the Overlook Hotel, you have Ewan McGregor to thank for all of them.
Why these four groups
The design hinges entirely on the gravitational pull of Stephen King, with IT and Doctor Sleep creating an irresistible six-word trap alongside Carrie, Misery, The Shining, and Cujo. The yellow tier stays manageable because HR and Legal rapidly anchor IT to corporate bureaucracy, but properly isolating Doctor Sleep demands spotting Ewan McGregor leading the purple rank alongside Trainspotting and Moulin Rouge!. Once the paint associations clean up the middle, the difficulty curve locks into place, punishing impulsive genre guessers while rewarding players who untangle the overlapping bibliography from the cinematic trivia with care.