Hints and Answers
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough purple group.
Yellow group hint: Long thin pieces, usually.
Green group hint: State Fair foods often come this way.
Blue group hint: You’ve probably seen a bunch just today.
Purple group hint: Cheers was one.
Today’s Connections answers
Yellow group: Kinds of strips.
Green group: Things on sticks.
Blue group: Online ad formats.
Purple group: ____ bar.
CNET publishes daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.
Detailed Word Breakdown
The theme is kinds of strips.
The four answers are bacon, comic, film and Möbius.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is things on sticks.
The four answers are hobby horse, pinwheel, Popsicle and sparkler.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is online ad formats.
The four answers are banner, interstitial, overlay and pop-up.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is ____ bar.
The four answers are candy, salad, space and sports.
How to Play
In Connections, you look at a grid of 16 words and pick four words that have a connection to one another. You do this four times until all 16 words in the puzzle are grouped. The tough part is that Times puzzle editor Wyna Liu chooses words that could fit in multiple groups.
The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.
