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...

• MARSHMALLOW
• LABUBU
• RADIO
• CHOWDER
• BEANIE BABY
• STOVE
• PITTER-PATTER
• ETCH A SKETCH
• TEDDY BEAR
• DESSICANT PACKET
• DOODLEBUG
• SWEETHEART
• HACKY SACK
• CONTROL PANEL
• SOFTIE
• EYE PILLOW

NYT Connections Hints

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• 🟨 Yellow group — a lovely soul
• 🟩 Green group — like a beanbag or maraca
• 🟦 Blue group — [YouTube link]

• 🟪 Purple group — left alone, our "best friends" really stand out

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 — TEDDY BEAR
• 🟩 Green group — DESSICANT PACKET
• 🟦 Blue group — ETCH A SKETCH
• 🟪 Purple group — PITTER-PATTER

NYT Connections Hints – Groups/Categories

Today’s Connections groups are...

• 🟨 Yellow group — tender-hearted person
• 🟩 Green group — pellet-filled things
• 🟦 Blue group — things with knobs
• 🟪 Purple group — starting with familiar names for kinds of dogs

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 — tender-hearted person (MARSHMALLOW, SOFTIE, SWEETHEART, TEDDY BEAR)
• 🟩 Green group — pellet-filled things (BEANIE BABY, DESSICANT PACKET, EYE PILLOW, HACKY SACK)
• 🟦 Blue group — things with knobs (CONTROL PANEL, ETCH A SKETCH, RADIO, STOVE)
• 🟪 Purple group — starting with familiar names for kinds of dogs (CHOWDER, DOODLEBUG, LABUBU, PITTER-PATTER)

SWEETHEART and SOFTIE opened up the yellows for me on a tricky-looking grid. EYE PILLOW, DESSICANT PACKET and HACKY SACK did the same for the greens. It took me a minute to realize BEANIE BABY was the fourth group member despite "bean" being right there in the name. Sigh.

Things with dials were next. Similarly, I didn’t realize for a hot minute that CONTROL PANEL was a member of said group. I only got the purples by default. I struck out on figuring out that category.

Still, that's a regular rainbow to extend my streak to 419 wins.

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

🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪

Want to know more about how everything fits together? Let’s explore today’s game in more depth in my NYT Connections Answers Explained column right here:

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 Tuesday’s game if you need them.

P.S. I saw a mention of this the other day and listened to it for the first time in forever. It’s pretty hard to go wrong when you’re using a solid remix of ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” as the backing track, but I forgot just how much of an absolute banger Madonna’s “Hung Up” is:

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.