In the puzzle, fly refers to the fishing-lure sense and belongs among four ways to attract fish.
In this Connections puzzle, a fly is understood through the fishing-lure sense of the word. The Free Dictionary’s search result explicitly includes lures among the contexts for fly. On the September 21, 2026 board, FLY belongs with CHUM, SPINNER, and WORM in the official category WAYS TO ATTRACT FISH.
The complete board and category sequence appear in the September 21, 2026 Connections puzzle.
Meaning and context of fly
Fly has several supported uses. Merriam-Webster defines the verb as moving in or passing through the air with wings. Cambridge lists the word as both a verb and a noun with different senses, while The Free Dictionary explicitly includes flight, insects, lures, and idioms among its contexts. The puzzle calls for the lure context, not the movement-through-air definition.
The official category supplies the controlling relationship: FLY is one of the WAYS TO ATTRACT FISH. This wording should remain broad. It is enough to identify the fishing referent; there is no need to replace the official relationship with a narrower claim about how every member works.
No etymological claim is needed here. The supplied search evidence establishes that the word has a fishing-lure sense and several other senses, but it does not provide an origin for that lure sense. For solving purposes, the neighboring words and category are the relevant context.
Natural examples
These illustrative sentences keep the intended sense clear:
- “The angler selected a fly before approaching the water.”
- “FLY made sense once CHUM, SPINNER, and WORM were considered together.”
- “The word fly changed meaning when it appeared in a fishing context.”
- “She first read fly as a verb, then reconsidered it as a lure.”
The examples demonstrate a useful reading habit: grammar is not fixed merely because a board entry resembles a familiar verb. In this group, FLY is interpreted as a noun in the lure sense.
A common mistake
The main mistake is to assume that FLY must mean movement through the air. That verb sense is supported by Merriam-Webster, but it is not the referent selected by this category. Another available sense concerns insects, yet the official group likewise points away from that reading and toward the lure.
A second mistake is to build a four-word set from shared grammar alone. COMPOSE, CAPTURE, CHOP, and FLY can all be read as verbs: dictionary results support verb senses for those words. Nevertheless, they map to four distinct official groups. COMPOSE is an EMAIL BUTTON, CAPTURE is among the CHESS VERBS, CHOP is one of the STARTS OF COMPOSERS’ NAMES, and FLY is one of the WAYS TO ATTRACT FISH.
Fly in the September 21 Connections puzzle
FLY is a good example of context selecting one exact referent from an ambiguous word. Read alone, it may suggest an action or an insect. Read beside CHUM, SPINNER, and WORM, the fishing-lure sense becomes relevant, and all four satisfy WAYS TO ATTRACT FISH.
This is not a claim that the four terms are interchangeable. Their shared feature is only the official relationship. The September 21, 2026 solved Connections board places that relationship alongside the other three answers.
How to recognize the group logic
When FLY seems to fit a broad verb set, look for a candidate that gives it a more specific shared context. SPINNER is especially useful because The Free Dictionary identifies a fishing-lure meaning. CHUM has a sourced fish-attracting definition, and WORM fills the fourth official position. Together they account for the exact category without changing its wording.
After removing those four, test CAPTURE, CASTLE, CHECK, and MATE as CHESS VERBS. The remaining name fragments then form STARTS OF COMPOSERS’ NAMES. Follow the full sequence in the September 21, 2026 Connections group explanation.