Are you ready for your daily dose of brain-teasing fun? The NYT Connections game is back with a fresh puzzle for Wednesday, April 16th! If you’re anything like most players, you might find yourself scratching your head, desperately seeking a little guidance. Fear not, fellow puzzle enthusiasts! This article provides hints, clues, and ultimately, the answers to help you conquer today’s Connections challenge.
The New York Times Connections game has quickly become a daily ritual for wordplay lovers. Its simple yet engaging format requires you to identify the hidden connections between seemingly disparate words. But some days, the connections can be particularly elusive. Whether you’re a seasoned ‘connector’ or a newbie to the game, a little help can go a long way. Let’s get started!
In this article, we will provide carefully curated hints to nudge you in the right direction without giving away too much. We’ll also reveal the categories to help narrow down your search. And, for those truly stumped, we’ll provide the answers, along with a breakdown of how the connections were formed. So, grab your thinking cap and let’s dive in!
How To Play Connections
Connections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on the NYT website or Games app.
You’re presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by figuring out the links between them. The groups could be things like items you can click, names for research study participants or words preceded by a body part.
There’s only one solution for each puzzle, and you’ll need to be careful when it comes to words that might fit into more than one category. You can shuffle the words to perhaps help you see links between them.
Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is usually the most difficult one. The purple group often involves wordplay.
Select four words you think go together and press Submit. If you make a guess and you’re incorrect, you’ll lose a life. If you’re close to having a correct group, you might see a message telling you that you’re one word away from getting it right, but you’ll still need to figure out which one to swap.
If you make four mistakes, it’s game over. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen with the help of some hints, and, if you’re really struggling, today’s Connections answers. As with Wordle and other similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats.
If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the publication’s Connections archive. This includes every previous game of Connections, so you can go back and play any of those that you have missed.
What Are Today’s Connections Hints?
Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.
Today’s 16 words are…
- CROWD
- SCORE
- MAMBA
- ENGINE
- BOA
- SIMBA
- KATY PERRY
- LION
- GARTER
- SCRATCH
- MERINGUE
- CORSET
- SCRAPE
- TANGY
- STOCKINGS
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — like tassels
- Green group — superficially damage
- Blue group — bear and fire would be at home here
- Purple group — jove and marinara would fit in this group
What Are Today’s Connections Groups?
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.
Today’s Connections groups are…
- Yellow group — burlesque wear
- Green group — mess up the surface of
- Blue group — they roar
- Purple group — Latin dances with a vowel changed
What Are Today’s 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 final warning!
Today’s Connections answers are…
- Yellow group — burlesque wear (BOA, CORSET, GARTER, STOCKINGS)
- Green group — mess up the surface of (SCAR, SCORE, SCRAPE, SCRATCH)
- Blue group — they roar (CROWD, ENGINE, KATY PERRY, LION)
- Purple group — Latin dances with a vowel changed (MAMBA, MERINGUE, SIMBA, TANGY)
Game Analysis
My first thought was that SCAR and SIMBA wouldn’t form part of a group, since we had a group about The Lion King not too long ago. MAMBA, BOA and GARTER could have been part of a group of snakes too.
But MERINGUE caught my eye first. I felt that, along with MAMBA (Mambo) and TANGY (Tango), it would be part of a group of dances with a letter changed (MERINGUE would relate to Merengue). It took me a while to figure out what might go with them before realizing that SIMBA could be transformed into Samba. And what do you know, I was right! Purples done.
The yellows were easy enough, so I got those next. The greens seemed fairly clear after that. I didn’t figure out the blue connection, but I submitted those third. In hindsight, that’s a pretty darn funny group. I probably should have figured it out from LION and that one Katy Perry song:
Final Thoughts
That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check back tomorrow for hints and the solution for Thursday’s game if you need them.
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Call someone you love!
Please follow my blog for more coverage of NYT Connections and 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. Also, follow me on Bluesky! It’s fun there.
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