- The official answer for today's NYT Connections lives at nytimes.com/games/connections — that's the only real-time source, and you'll need it because this page doesn't update daily.
- The game has four color-coded groups: Yellow (easiest), Green, Blue, Purple (trickiest). Start Yellow, leave Purple for last.
- The one mistake that kills most streaks: submitting a guess the moment you think you see four matching words. The NYT editors love "one-away" traps — words that fit two categories.
- This page is a strategy reference, not a daily answer dump. Bookmark it for the how-to; go to the NYT for today's specific solution.
I should be upfront about something before we go any further: if you want today's exact answers right now, this isn't the right place. A site at DR1 competing against the NYT's own game page and the dozen or so established answer-aggregator sites that refresh every morning isn't going to beat them on daily timeliness. That's just reality.
What I can give you is the part those daily-answer pages mostly skip: a proper explanation of how the puzzle works, why you keep guessing wrong on the hard categories, and a hint system you can apply before reaching for the answer key. I've been playing Connections daily since it launched, and the strategy below is what I actually use when I'm stuck.
Where to Actually Find Today's Answer
The canonical source is nytimes.com/games/connections. Open the game, play it, and if you run out of guesses the solution reveals automatically. The NYT does not publish a separate "answers" page — the game itself is the answer key once you're done.
If you want spoilers before playing — fair enough, no judgment — the sites that reliably post same-day solutions within a few minutes of midnight reset include Mashable's games section, Tom's Guide, and a handful of dedicated word puzzle blogs that have been doing this since Wordle mainstreamed the format. Search "Connections answers [today's date]" and you'll find them immediately. They update faster than I ever could.
What those pages don't usually give you is context: why the purple group is themed the way it is, or what the editor was thinking with that deliberately misleading yellow word. That's where this guide comes in.
The Four Color Groups Explained
Connections gives you 16 words and asks you to sort them into four groups of four. Each group has a hidden theme. The colors tell you how hard each group is supposed to be — though the NYT's definition of "easy" and mine sometimes disagree.
One thing the table doesn't capture: the NYT sometimes puts a deliberately easy-looking word in the purple group. You think "ah, PINE obviously goes with the tree group" — but PINE actually belongs in "things that can precede APPLE" with PINEAPPLE being the link. That kind of misdirection is a signature of the harder categories, and it's why solving yellow first is more than just a confidence trick.
Why Yellow First Isn't Just Beginner Advice
Solving Yellow first removes four words from the board. Those four words are almost certainly the ones the editors used as decoys — they're the ones that "almost" fit two other groups. Once Yellow's gone, the remaining 12 words have fewer false connections pulling them in the wrong direction. Every experienced Connections player I know does this automatically, not because it's the safe choice but because it actively makes the harder groups easier to read.
The reverse — going for Purple first to prove you can — usually ends in a wasted guess. I've done it. It's not worth it.
My Hint Strategy Before Submitting
I never submit a guess the moment I think I've found a group. That single habit cut my mistake rate roughly in half. Here's the exact sequence I run before hitting Submit:
Before selecting any words, say the connection aloud in one short phrase: "These are all verbs meaning 'to move quickly.'" If you can't say it in under six words, you probably don't have the right group yet.
For every word in your candidate group, ask: could this word also fit any of the other three categories? If one of your four words could plausibly fit a different group, that word is a trap. Swap it out and find a cleaner alternative before submitting.
Look at the 12 words you're not guessing. Do they suggest a theme you haven't noticed yet? Sometimes the board is telling you something you're missing, and glancing at the remainders before you commit will catch it.
This sounds trivial but it isn't. The puzzle is designed to reward fast, confident players with traps. Slowing down by 10 seconds lets your brain do a second pass without pressure. A surprising number of mistakes get caught in this pause.
The Word Solver tool on this site won't help with Connections specifically (it's built for anagram-style games), but if the theme involves possible word forms or compound constructions, thinking through letter combinations can occasionally surface the link. A stretch, but worth knowing it's there.
A Worked Example — Start to Finish
This isn't a real NYT puzzle — I made it up to demonstrate the process without spoiling any actual game. The theme structure mirrors real puzzles closely enough to be useful.
Imagine these 16 words on the board:
First pass: I can see trees immediately — MAPLE, BIRCH, ELM, and ASH. That feels like Yellow. But before I submit, Step 2 kicks in: could ASH fit elsewhere? ASH is also a type of grey color, and it's a surname. Let me hold off and look at the other words first.
Looking at DART, SPRINT, BOLT, DASH — those are all words meaning to run fast. That's another obvious group. But wait: SWIFT also means fast. Five potential members for one group means one of them doesn't belong there. SWIFT is also a bird. DART is also a bird (not well known, but real). So the groups are overlapping on purpose.
Looking at LARK, WREN, SWIFT, MARTIN — those are all birds. LARK, WREN, SWIFT, MARTIN is cleaner than LARK, WREN, DART, MARTIN because SWIFT-as-bird is more common knowledge than DART-as-bird. Green group: four birds.
Now: IRON, BROOK, RYAN, GRACE. Those are all names. Specifically: Ironside, Brooklyn, Ryan Reynolds/Gosling, Grace Kelly — all associated with the word KELLY perhaps? Or more likely: these could all follow a first name. GRACE Kelly, BROOK Shields... or they could all be Kelly ___. Actually in this example the connection is "___ Kelly" — the Kelly here is the hidden link. That's a purple-level wordplay theme.
Yellow: MAPLE, BIRCH, ELM, ASH (trees). Green: LARK, WREN, SWIFT, MARTIN (birds). Blue: DART, SPRINT, BOLT, DASH (move fast). Purple: IRON, BROOK, RYAN, GRACE (___ Kelly). Notice how DASH could have been a person's name, SWIFT could have been the speed group, and ASH could have been a color — the editors built all those false trails deliberately. The 10-second pause before submitting Yellow would catch this: "could ASH be in another group?" Yes. Check if the birds group works without it. LARK, WREN, SWIFT, MARTIN — four birds without ASH. Good. Now Yellow is safe to submit.
One-Away Traps and How to Spot Them
A "one-away" result means three of your four words were correct but one was wrong. The game tells you this after a failed guess — it's the most useful piece of feedback in the puzzle and the most frustrating one to receive.
When you get a one-away, the standard advice is "just swap out one word and try again." The problem: you usually don't know which one to swap. Here's a better framework for it.
The One-Away Diagnostic
After a one-away, don't just grab the most obvious-seeming replacement word. Instead: take each of your four original words and ask which one has the most plausible alternative home. That's the intruder. The word that genuinely fits only your intended group is almost certainly correct. The word that could fit somewhere else is the one to pull.
In the worked example above, if I'd put SWIFT in the speed group by mistake and gotten a one-away, the diagnostic would go: DART (also a bird, weak claim to speed group) — BOLT (primarily a speed word, also lightning) — DASH (speed, also a name — Dash from The Incredibles) — SWIFT (speed, but stronger claim as a bird). SWIFT is the one with the biggest "alternative home," so pull SWIFT and replace with the remaining bird candidate.
The Two-Word Anchor Method
Before your first guess on any group, identify the two words in your candidate set you're most confident about. Those are your anchors. If you get a one-away, keep both anchors and rotate only the other two. This prevents the situation where you second-guess a correct word and accidentally eject it.
The trickiest puzzles are the ones where your two anchors are actually one correct and one intruder — the intruder just feels very secure. If rotating the non-anchors doesn't find the solution after one attempt, revisit whether an anchor might be wrong. It's rarer but it happens.
For more on pattern recognition in word puzzles generally, the daily puzzle routine guide has a section on managing cognitive load across multiple games per session — relevant if you play both Wordle and Connections back-to-back every morning.
A Few More Things I've Noticed Over Time
Some patterns from regular play that don't fit neatly anywhere else:
Monday puzzles skew easier than Friday puzzles. This isn't officially stated anywhere, but it's consistent enough that I adjust my expectations accordingly. If you're new and you got destroyed by a Tuesday puzzle, try a Monday one before concluding the game isn't for you.
The purple category often involves a word that can precede or follow a common word. The hidden link might be "___ FISH" or "THUNDER ___" rather than a semantic category. If you're stuck on purple, ask yourself: is there a single common word that goes with all four?
Proper nouns show up more than you'd expect. Celebrity last names, city names, and character names are fair game. If a word seems oddly out of place thematically, try thinking of it as a surname rather than a common word.
When completely stuck, eliminate. Rather than trying to identify all four groups positively, try identifying which groups certain words definitely don't belong to. Process of elimination on even one or two words can unlock the whole board.
The daily puzzle hub has a broader list of word and puzzle games if Connections isn't scratching the itch some days — Brain Test, Wordle variants, and the anagram tools are all there.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is NYT Connections and how does it work?
NYT Connections is a daily word puzzle from The New York Times where you're given 16 words and must sort them into four groups of four based on a shared theme. Each group is color-coded by difficulty: Yellow is the easiest, followed by Green, Blue, and Purple (the trickiest). You get four incorrect guesses before the game ends, and the NYT shows you today's solution when you finish or lose. It resets daily at midnight in your local time zone. The game is free to play at nytimes.com/games/connections, though the NYT may gate it behind a free account at some point.
Where can I find today's NYT Connections answer?
The definitive source is the NYT's own game page at nytimes.com/games/connections — after you finish or fail, it shows the full solution. If you want the answers before playing (or if you've used all your guesses), search "Connections answers [today's date]" in Google. Sites like Mashable Games, Tom's Guide, and several dedicated puzzle blogs post solutions within minutes of midnight. This page does not update daily and is not a spoiler source — it's a strategy guide for understanding how to approach the puzzle.
How many guesses do you get in NYT Connections?
You get four incorrect guesses total. Each wrong submission costs one guess regardless of whether you were one-away or completely off. Correct submissions don't cost a guess. This means you can technically solve the first three groups with only one guess remaining and still win — but it's stressful. Most experienced players aim to solve at least Yellow and Green without mistakes to preserve guesses for the harder Blue and Purple groups where one-away traps are more common.
What does "one away" mean in Connections?
"One away" is the message the game shows when three of your four selected words belong to the same correct group but the fourth word is wrong. It means you're almost right — you have three of the correct words but one intruder. This is simultaneously the most helpful and most frustrating feedback in the game, because you know you're close but you still have to figure out which of the four words is the odd one out. Using the two-anchor method described above helps identify the intruder quickly after a one-away result.
Why do I keep making mistakes on the Purple group?
Purple is designed to be hard specifically because the connection is non-literal — it's usually wordplay, a hidden prefix or suffix, a pun, or an indirect association rather than a straightforward category. The editors also deliberately put one or two Purple words in positions where they look like they belong to an easier group. The best approach: solve Yellow, Green, and Blue first if possible, so Purple is the only group left. By elimination, whatever four words remain are the Purple group, and you can submit without needing to understand the theme. Understanding why it's themed that way often only becomes clear after the solution is revealed.
Can you play yesterday's or older Connections puzzles?
The NYT does not offer a free archive of past Connections puzzles on their main game page. If you miss a day, that puzzle is generally not accessible for free through official channels. Some third-party sites host archives of past puzzles in non-official formats, and the NYT Games subscription may include archive access, though availability changes. For practice purposes, playing the current daily puzzle every day is the most consistent way to build the pattern recognition that makes all future puzzles easier.
