Today’s Connections puzzle in the New York Times features a tricky word in the easiest group, and while the puzzle is solvable even if you have no clue what it is, it is still worth asking—what does “cask” mean, and how does it fit the solution? We’ve got you covered with the answers and hints you need.

Literature-minded people might fall for a nasty red herring. Screenshot by Dot Esports

Per Merriam-Webster, a cask is “a barrel-shaped vessel of staves, headings, and hoops usually for liquids,” or the quantity contained within a cask. Odd and rarely-used the word may be, it is actually part of the yellow group of words in today’s Connections puzzle, the easiest of the bunch. Unsurprisingly, many players today ended up finding other groups first in this one. I personally got the purple one first because of how much the words involved stood out in their sheer oddity, figuring out the yellow group in third place.