NYT Connections – How To Play

Connections is a free New York Times daily word game that you can play on the NYT’s website or Games app. If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the Connections archive, which includes every previous game.

Connections presents you with a grid of 16 words (sometimes phrases, symbols or numbers). The aim is to arrange them into four groups of four. You don’t know how they hit together or what the category for each group is: that’s what you have to figure out.

There’s only one correct solution and there are often red herrings. You can guess incorrectly three times. A fourth wrong guess, and it’s game over.

Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to deduce, followed by blue, green and purple. Often, the yellow and green groups have synonyms, the blues have cultural references and the purples have some kind of wordplay involved. But this is not a hard and fast rule. Be ready for curveballs – part of the fun of Connections is in how the NYT shakes things up to keep you on your toes.

As with Wordle and similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends using an emoji-based grid. The game tracks your progress too.

Many players take pride in having long win streaks or getting a reverse rainbow – correctly guessing the purple, blue, green and yellow groups in that order with no mistakes. That adds an extra little challenge.

NYT Connections Hints – Today’s Word List

Scroll slowly! I’ll first give you a list of today’s words, then a hint for each category. After that, I’ll reveal one word that goes into each group. Then I’ll tell you the category names, followed by the full answers.

Today’s 16 words are...

• ROUND
• SHADOW
• RUMBLE
• ORDERS
• OVATION
• SOCK
• HAND
• ROLL
• CLAP
• JOKE
• BOOM
• STAGE
• LEVEL
• STRING
• ROOM
• PHASE

NYT Connections Hints

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• 🟨 Yellow group — gotta do this before the next thing
• 🟩 Green group — the aural side of an electrical storm
• 🟦 Blue group — like a politician who is controlled by another person or organization
• 🟪 Purple group — press, army and stone would fit in here

NYT Connections Hints – One Answer Per Group

Need some extra help?

Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.

Let’s take a look at one answer for each group.

Here we go…

• 🟨 Yellow group — ROUND
• 🟩 Green group — BOOM
• 🟦 Blue group — HAND
• 🟪 Purple group — ORDERS

NYT Connections Hints – Groups/Categories

Today’s Connections groups are...

• 🟨 Yellow group — step in a process
• 🟩 Green group — sound like thunder
• 🟦 Blue group — kinds of puppets
• 🟪 Purple group — standing _____

NYT Connections Answers

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.

This is your last chance to look away.

This is your final warning!

Today’s Connections answers are...

• 🟨 Yellow group — step in a process (LEVEL, PHASE, ROUND, STAGE)
• 🟩 Green group — sound like thunder (BOOM, CLAP, ROLL, RUMBLE)
• 🟦 Blue group — kinds of puppets (HAND, SHADOW, SOCK, STRING)
• 🟪 Purple group — standing _____ (JOKE, ORDERS, OVATION, ROOM)

I figured ROUND, OVATION, HAND and CLAP all related to applause, so I rolled the dice on those, but no joy at all. Darn. First mistake.

I then spotted the yellows thanks to STAGE and PHASE. Going back to my first thought, I realized I wasn’t totally off the mark as OVATION, ROOM and ORDERS can all be "standing" things. After I realized JOKE was the fourth word, I had the purples in the bag.

The greens were up next, leaving the greens for a 424th win in a row on my current streak.

How did you get on today? Here's my grid:

🟨🟪🟦🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Thursday’s game if you need them.

P.S. I saw The Last Dinner Party for the second, and hopefully not last, time last week. It was a fun show!

I hadn’t really listened to anything from their second album, From The Pyre, until a couple of days before the show. Like the first record, it’s very good. I haven’t quite nailed down my favorites from the album yet, but lead single “This Is The Killer Speaking” is a real earworm:

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!

Please follow my blog for more NYT Connections hints and help with other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Sharing this column with other people who play Connections would be appreciated too. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my newsletter, Pastimes.