Connections Answers Today & Hints

What is Connections?

Connections is a daily word-grouping puzzle from The New York Times. Each day you are given a grid of 16 words and asked to sort them into four groups of four, where every group shares a hidden link. The link might be a category (types of pasta), a phrase pattern (words that come before "cake"), a hidden word, or a piece of wordplay that only clicks once you see it.

The game launched in June 2023 and is edited by Wyna Liu. It quickly became the second most played title in the NYT Games lineup after Wordle, and like Wordle it is free to play once a day on the web and in the NYT Games app.

How to play Connections

Select four words you believe belong together and press Submit. If you are right, the group locks in at the top of the board with its category name. If you are wrong, you lose one of your four mistakes. A message saying "One away" means three of your four words are correct. Solve all four groups before you run out of mistakes to complete the puzzle. You can shuffle the board at any time, which often helps you see words in a new light.

What the Connections colours mean

Each group is assigned a colour that signals how difficult it is meant to be. Yellow is the most straightforward group, usually a plain category you can name at a glance. Green is a step harder. Blue is trickier and often relies on a less common meaning of each word. Purple is the hardest group and is typically wordplay: hidden words, homophones, or words that complete a phrase. The colours are only shown after a group is solved, but knowing the scale helps you plan which group to go for first.

When does the new Connections come out?

A new Connections unlocks at midnight in your local time zone. We publish hints and answers as soon as the puzzle is available and keep every previous day in the archive above.

Connections strategy and tips

1. 1Find the red herring before you submitIf you can see five or six words that fit one category, that is a warning sign. Work out which extra word belongs elsewhere before using a guess.
2. 2Start with the group you are most sure ofLocking in one correct group removes four words from the board and makes the remaining links much easier to see.
3. 3Say the words out loudMany purple groups depend on sound: homophones, rhymes, or words that become something else with a letter added. Reading aloud helps you catch them.
4. 4Check for hidden words and prefixesLook inside each word for smaller words, and try adding common prefixes or suffixes. FIRE, BALL and SNOW might all go before MAN.
5. 5Use shuffle generouslyThe starting layout often places related decoys side by side. Shuffling breaks those visual pairings and helps you see new combinations.

Common category types

Official Connections resources

GameAnswers.com is an independent site and is not affiliated with The New York Times. To play the game itself, use the official sources below.

If you like Connections, try these

More daily puzzles with their own hint hubs, for when one isn’t enough.

Wordle hintsGuess the five-letter word in six tries.Strands hintsFind the themed words and the spangram.Pinpoint hintsGuess the category from five clues.CCatalogues hintsPut seven items in order under The New Yorker's hidden theme.