The words BACKSIDE, CABOOSE, and TAIL come from puzzle #795 of the NYT Connections on August 14, 2025. This one’s a bit of a funny setup, since you’re circling around words that can point to a person’s rear end. Of course, the puzzle doesn’t make it any more straightforward. CABOOSE, sitting next to TRAIN, along with a few other decoys, is there to muddy the waters and send solvers down the wrong track. Sorting out which words actually belong together takes a closer look
Caboose and Train Don’t Go Together
In this Connections puzzle, the words CABOOSE and TRAIN seem to point at a locomotive vehicle. That similarity is exactly what makes them a trap. In an actual train, the caboose is the last car, usually meant for the crew. Here, though, CABOOSE is used as slang for a person’s rear end. Even TRAIN, on the other hand, doesn’t refer to the series of wagons at all. It refers to the trailing fabric on a bride’s dress, with related words like VEIL, BUSTLE, and BOUQUET forming the COMPONENT’S OF A BRIDE’S ENSENBLE theme.
The Fourth Word Is Seat to Form the Theme
The complete group is SEAT, BACKSIDE, TAIL, and CABOOSE, and they all mean a person’s behind. Together, they form the yellow category DERRIERE. This word comes from French and literally means behind, which is often used as a polite or euphemistic stand-in for cruder terms.
