Looking for Saturday’s Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey, folks! I hope you’re enjoying the last weekend of the year.
I don’t particularly believe in New Year’s resolutions, but perhaps you’ve started thinking about yours (and I wish you well with them!). I wonder how many new gym memberships will be abandoned in a few weeks’ time.
Before we get started, I’ve started a discussion group for Connections and this column on Discord. You can chat about each game (and other topics) with me and other folks. I’m always interested to find out how other people approach the game, so join us! It’s fun.
It’s also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare(!) occasions that I mess something up.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Sunday, December 29, are coming right up.
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.
Aside from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find my hints for each grid via Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query.
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…
- BEACH
- DATE
- LOCK
- CHERRY
- FUR
- MAROON
- TIME
- PAIR
- STRAND
- HEAD
- LOCATION
- BRICK
- DURATION
- YOU
- RUBY
- WISP
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — blood and cardinal would fit in here
- Green group — calendar entry essentials
- Blue group — toupee or not toupee, that is the question
- Purple group — make like these and leaf
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 — shades of red
- Green group — appointment specifications
- Blue group — different amounts of hair
- Purple group — tree homophones
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 — shades of red (BRICK, CHERRY, MAROON, RUBY)
- Green group — appointment specifications (DATE, DURATION, LOCATION, TIME)
- Blue group — different amounts of hair (HEAD, LOCK, STRAND, WISP)
- Purple group — tree homophones (BEACH, FUR, PAIR, YOU)
No perfect game today, but that makes it seven straight wins for me. Here’s how I fared:
🟪🟨🟦🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟪🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟦🟦
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
I hope those clues somewhat made sense because goodness me I was annoyed after making so many mistakes.
I got flummoxed by a red herring as I went with a guess of STRAND, BEACH, MAROON and BRICK. I was not close to a group there. Darn it.
However, I got the greens after shifting strategies. The yellows then stood out to me after I drew a link between CHERRY and RUBY.
I did have roughly the right idea for the blues, but I was thinking of it more in terms of more general head- and hair-related things. So I made a guess that included FUR, which was a reasonable enough one. But my third mistake included BEACH. I have no idea why I thought that made sense.
Alas, I eventually realized the error of my ways and got the blues. That left the purples for the win. I was kicking myself for not making that connection and not sticking to the tried-and-tested strategy of reading all the words aloud to check for homophones.
That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Monday’s game if you need them.
P.S. When I’m ticked off, the fastest way for me to shake out of that funk is to dance it out. I fire up a random selection from my mega playlist, get off my butt and dance for a few minutes.
That’s my recommendation for today: dance it out. Whatever stresses or worries you have going on, play an upbeat song you love and dance to it. I swear it makes things better, even if just for a few minutes.
Have a great day! Make sure to drink enough water! Call someone you love!
If you’re so inclined, please do follow my blog for more coverage of Connections and other word games and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Also, follow me on Bluesky! It’s fun there.
