Today’s Connections Hints

Section 02 · How to use hints

How to Use Connections Hints Without Spoiling It

A good Connections hint gives you the smallest nudge that gets you moving — not the answer. The ladder above is built for that: difficulty first, then starting letters, then the themes, so you can stop the instant something clicks. Used well, Connections hints make you a sharper solver rather than a lazier one.

• Take the smallest hint first. Knowing which group is purple is often enough — it tells you where the overlaps are hiding.
• Use the starting letters as a filter. A category's first letter narrows what the theme could be without giving it away.
• Stop at the themes. Once you know the four categories, sorting the words yourself is the fun part — resist opening the full answer.
• Keep the answer as a last resort. Save the answer page for when you have genuinely run out of ideas.

Here is what each rung of today's Connections hints actually gives you. The first tells you which group is the trickiest — the purple, wordplay one — which is often the single most useful clue, because it points to where the overlaps hide. The second gives the starting letter of each category, enough to steer your thinking without naming the theme. The third names all four category themes, and that is deliberately the furthest these Connections hints go: you know what the four groups are about, but you still have to work out which of the sixteen words belongs to each. That final sorting step is the puzzle, and keeping it for yourself is the whole reason this page exists.

Splitting the hints from the answer this way solves a real problem. On most sites, searching for a Connections hint drops the full grid in front of you before you have decided how much help you wanted, and the puzzle is over. By keeping the word groupings entirely off this page, we let you take a spoiler-free nudge and go back to the board with your solve intact. When you genuinely want the solution, it is one tap away on the answer page — never forced on you.

Used this way, Connections hints train you rather than replace you. Because you are still doing the sorting, your eye for the setter's tricks keeps sharpening; the more days you solve with a small nudge instead of the full answer, the fewer nudges you will need. That is the quiet payoff of a spoiler-free approach — it widens the gap between the puzzles you need help on and the ones you crack cold.

Section 03 · Strategy

Connections Strategy: Solve It From the Themes

Once you know the four category themes, the puzzle becomes an exercise in resisting the obvious. Connections is deliberately built so words look like they fit more than one group, so the themes alone will not solve it — you have to untangle the overlaps.

1. 01
   Start with the purple wordplay. It is the group most likely to steal a word from another category, so pin it down first.
2. 02
   Look for the overloaded theme. If more than four words seem to fit one category, some of them belong elsewhere — find the impostors.
3. 03
   Solve by elimination. Place the words that can only go in one group; the rest often falls into place automatically.
4. 04
   Only submit a group you would bet on. With four mistakes and four groups, there is no room for a careless guess.

The fastest way to build this instinct is volume. Play Connections Unlimited free — over a thousand real past puzzles, no daily limit — and the setter's tricks start to feel familiar.

Understanding the four colour groups

Connections sorts its four groups by difficulty, and the colours tell you where the danger is. Yellow is the most straightforward, usually a plain theme like "types of dog". Green is a clear connection with a word or two that could mislead. Blue is more specific and takes a second look. Purple is the trickiest and almost always wordplay rather than meaning — hidden words, anagrams, "___ + a word", or a pun. Because our hints reveal the themes but not the groupings, knowing this ranking helps you decide which category to tackle first: the obvious-looking theme is usually yellow, and the one joined by a trick is purple.

Common purple-group tricks

Purple is where most losses happen, so it pays to know its recurring patterns. Watch for four words that can each precede or follow a shared word ("___ BOARD"), words with a smaller word hidden inside them, homophones, anagrams, or members of a category you would never group by meaning — four words that each contain a body part, say. When three groups look obvious but one word refuses to fit anywhere, that word almost always belongs to a purple trick you have not spotted yet. Spotting the mechanism, not just the theme, is the single biggest jump in Connections skill.

Quick tips if you are new to Connections

• Read all sixteen words first. The first pattern you notice is often the trap the setter wants you to fall for.
• Group loosely in your head. List five or six possible members per theme, then whittle down once you know the categories.
• Shuffle the board. Rearranging tiles breaks the grouping your eye locked onto and surfaces links you missed.
• Save the obvious group. If one theme is clear, it is not going anywhere — spend early attention on the ambiguous words.
• Respect the four-mistake limit. No partial credit and no way to earn attempts back, so only submit a group you would bet on.

Connections vs Wordle

If you came from Wordle, the two games reward different instincts. Wordle is deduction inside a fixed structure with clear per-letter feedback; Connections is lateral thinking under ambiguity, where a whole group is either right or wrong and a single misplaced word tells you little. There is no vocabulary barrier — you know every word — but the puzzle lives in the relationships between them. Warming up on unlimited Wordle and then switching to Connections is a good way to keep both muscles sharp.

If today's Connections hints have done their job, you should be able to close this page and finish the board on your own. And if you catch the bug, do not wait for tomorrow's puzzle — the fastest way to get better is to keep playing. Our Connections Unlimited bank holds over a thousand real past NYT boards, so you can drill the exact patterns these hints describe — spotting the purple wordplay, resisting the obvious four, solving by elimination — across as many puzzles as you like, with no daily limit and nothing to lose. A focused afternoon there will teach you more than a month of one-a-day play, and you will bring sharper instincts back to the official board tomorrow.

Section 04 · Play

More Connections and Word Games

Infinite Wordle is an independent website and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by The New York Times. Connections is a trademark of The New York Times Company.

Section 05 · FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions