Connections is a game from The New York Times that challenges you to find the association between words. It sounds easy, but it’s not: The categories of connections can be almost anything, and they’re usually pretty specific. If you need help finding the answers, we’ve got you covered.
What is Connections?
Connections is a game from The New York Times. The goal is simple: sort 16 words into groups of four. Each group of words will be connected by a common idea or theme. That common element can be anything. We’ve seen everything from games that rely on the number of letters in words to categories that ask you to spot an extra letter at the end of a word. Sometimes these are references to economics, other times they’re fairy tales. There’s no telling what kind of association the words will make.
Once you are sure you understand the link, select 4 words and click “Submit”. You only have four attempts in total, so don’t just guess.
Tips for Today’s Connection Groups
Here are some 401st Connections game tips to help you get started:
- YELLOW: Also grumpy.
- Green: A prototype.
- Blue: There is singing in all this.
- Purple: A name that starts with a P.
If you still need help, the actual names of the groups are:
- YELLOW: In a bad mood
- Green: Experimental
- Blue: Broadway Musicals Begin
- Purple: Rock _____
Answers from today’s NYT Connections
In a bad (yellow) moon:
Crossed, short, gruff, irritable
Experimental (green):
Exploratory, pilot, preliminary, test
Broadway Musical Debuts (Blue):
Fiddler, Jersey, Kinky, Joyfully
Pierre ____ (Violet):
Pan, Parker, Piper, Rabbit
How did we solve this connection game?
July 16th was a pretty average game, but Blue might be difficult unless you like musicals.
The words “moody” and “irritable” immediately seemed synonymous with “grumpy,” so I started looking for other words that might fit that idea. It didn’t take me long to settle on “short” (as in “hot-tempered”) and “irritable.” These four words belonged to the yellow group, “Moody.”
I shuffled the cards a few times and Pan, Parker, and Rabbit all lined up. It seemed strange to me, but it took me saying them out loud (again) to realize that they were all named “Peter.” From there, it was easy to choose Piper as the final word. The purple group was “Peter ____.”
Exploratory, pilot, preliminary, and trial are all pretty straightforward synonyms for “experimental,” “prototype,” “pathfinder,” or something like that. They were part of the green group, which was “experimental.”
All that remained were Fiddler, Jersey, Kinky, and Merrily, unrelated words if I ever saw any. I eventually figured out that they were the first words in the titles of musicals. Fiddler on the roof, Jersey Boys, Pervert Boots and Joyfully We’re rolling. Blue was “the beginning of Broadway musicals.”
How do you guess the connection groups?
There is no quick and reliable method to approach Connections like there is with Wordle, because Connections is not algorithmic. However, there are a few things to keep in mind that may help you.
- Find similar parts of speech. Are some words verbs and some nouns? Are some adjectives? Try mentally grouping them according to these categories and see if any other patterns jump out at you.
- Are the words synonyms? Sometimes the categories will just be synonyms of a phrase, or very close to synonyms. Don’t rely on this too much, though. Sometimes Connections will deliberately add words that are Sometimes synonyms to mislead you.
- Try to say the words. Sometimes it helps to sound out the words. One of the puzzles we saw included the words go, rate, faster, clip, pace, speed, move, commute, and hurry, all of which are obviously related to the idea of movement. However, when you sound them out, it becomes a little more obvious that only four of them (go, move, hurry, faster) are words you would actually say to get someone to move.
- Expect that red herring. Connections typically contain words that could be plausibly but incorrectly grouped together. Take the words Bud, Corona, and Light, for example. You might instinctively see these three words together and assume they are grouped into a beer-related category, but that is not the case.
- Look for distinct words. If a word on your board doesn’t have multiple meanings or can only really be used in one context, try using that word as the basis for a category.
- Shuffle the board. Sometimes moving the words around will help you look at them in a new light.
If you haven’t been able to solve this problem, don’t feel too bad: there’s always tomorrow! And these words might be relevant to a topic that interests you, giving you a head start on the competition.