How Do ARKANSANS, CHIHUAHUA, POSSESSES and SPRINGING Split Into Repeated Trigrams?

What does “repeated trigram” mean?

A trigram is a sequence of three consecutive letters. “Repeated trigram” here means the same three-letter sequence appears twice in a row after the first three letters.

The repeated block does not have to be a word, root or meaningful English unit. The split is puzzle wordplay, not the normal way you would analyze the words in English.

Why is CHIHUAHUA split as CHI + HUA + HUA?

The puzzle ignores the word’s ordinary identity as a dog breed or place name. For this group, only the letter structure matters: CHI is followed by HUA twice.

Why is POSSESSES split as POS + SES + SES?

Normal spelling encourages you to see POSSESS + ES. Connections deliberately uses a different segmentation: POS + SES + SES.

Why is SPRINGING split as SPR + ING + ING?

Everyday morphology suggests SPRING + ING. Puzzle wordplay instead splits the visible letters after SPR: ING + ING.

Why doesn’t CHIHUAHUA form a Mexico group with DURANGO and TABASCO?

That Mexico connection is real, but this puzzle uses a different property of each word.

See why the three Mexico-related words split into different groups →