TrifectaWord Puzzle — August 16, 2026
The clues, the three column answers and the connecting word from the daily puzzle of August 16, 2026.
The puzzle of August 16, 2026
This was the TrifectaWord daily puzzle for August 16, 2026 — the same one every player in the world was given that day. It ran at a difficulty of hard, and its final word is 5 letters long.
Each of the three columns below hid one answer, and started out showing only its first clue word; the second and third clue words were revealed a letter at a time as players guessed wrong. The three answers were themselves the clues to a single final word that connects all of them. If that structure is new to you, the how to play guide explains it properly.
The clues
These are the three clue words each column revealed, in the order players saw them.
Column 1
Shorts · Table · Ace
Column 2
Break · Crash · Destroy
Column 3
Success · Popular · Movie
Answers
This day is over and its puzzle is no longer playable, so the answers are below. They are folded away in case you arrived here from a search while a friend is still working on it.
Show the answers for August 16, 2026
Column answers
- Tennis — from Shorts, Table and Ace.
- Shatter — from Break, Crash and Destroy.
- Blockbuster — from Success, Popular and Movie.
The connecting word
The word linking Tennis, Shatter and Blockbuster is Smash.
What a perfect run was worth
A column pays most when it is solved from its first clue alone, and every letter of clue words 2 and 3 you never needed adds to it. Because those clue words differ from day to day, so does the ceiling. On this puzzle it was:
- Column 1 — 745 points (550 for a first-clue solve, plus 5 × 30 and 3 × 15 for the letters never revealed)
- Column 2 — 805 points (550 for a first-clue solve, plus 5 × 30 and 7 × 15 for the letters never revealed)
- Column 3 — 835 points (550 for a first-clue solve, plus 7 × 30 and 5 × 15 for the letters never revealed)
- Final word — 1000 points (500 base, plus a 500 time bonus for finishing with the full clock left)
That is a theoretical maximum of 3385 points, which assumes three cold first-guess column solves, no hints and no wrong answers. The how to play guide works through where each of those numbers comes from.
Nearby puzzles
Play today's puzzle
A new TrifectaWord puzzle goes live every day at midnight UTC. It is free, it runs in the browser, and you can start without an account. Play today's puzzle, or browse the rest of the puzzle archive.