Looking for the most recent NYT Connections puzzle answers? CNET publishes daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.
Puzzle Overview
In Connections, players examine a grid of 16 words and arrange them into four groups of four based on shared characteristics. The challenge stems from overlapping categories and misleading associations designed by the puzzle editor.
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.
Today’s puzzle features a challenging purple category involving altered taxonomic terms. Read on for group hints and the complete solution.
Hints and Clues
Here are four thematic clues for today's groupings, ordered from the straightforward yellow category to the tricky purple category.
Yellow group hint: Fancy and upscale.
Green group hint: Components found inside a mechanical timepiece.
Blue group hint: Famous individuals named Dan.
Purple group hint: Scientific classification terms with an extra letter added.
Solutions
Yellow group: Luxe.
Green group: Parts of a mechanical clock.
Blue group: Famous Dans.
Purple group: Taxonomic ranks, plus an added letter.
Yellow Category Breakdown
The theme is luxe.
The four answers are bougie, fancy, posh, and swank.
Green Category Breakdown
The theme is parts of a mechanical clock.
The four answers are escapement, pendulum, ratchet, and spring.
Blue Category Breakdown
The theme is famous Dans.
The four answers are Aykroyd, Levy, Rather, and Savage.
Purple Category Breakdown
The theme is taxonomic ranks plus an added letter.
The four answers are border, classy, foamily, and genius.
Toughest Connections puzzles
We’ve made a note of some of the toughest Connections puzzles so far. Maybe they’ll help you see patterns in future puzzles.
#5: Included “things you can set,” such as mood, record, table and volleyball.
#4: Included “one in a dozen,” such as egg, juror, month and rose.
#3: Included “streets on screen,” such as Elm, Fear, Jump and Sesame.
#2: Included “power ___” such as nap, plant, Ranger and trip.
#1: Included “things that can run,” such as candidate, faucet, mascara and nose.
