Looking for Saturday’s Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey there, folks! I hope you’re having a wonderful weekend.
It’s been a pretty quiet one for me, especially after a storm brought in 15 inches of snow the other day. That means it’s time to stay home, cozy up, play games, watch football (the one I refuse to call soccer if I don’t have to) and movies, and just take things easy. I hope you’re able to relax today too.
Before we begin, I’ve set up 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, February 16, 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…
- PUNCH
- SUGGESTION
- TOUCH
- POINT
- MATCH
- BOX
- TRIUMPH
- SET
- HINT
- COMPLEMENT
- OSCAR
- SUIT
- LAMB CHOP
- TRACE
- FIT
- RETREIVE
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — a lil’ bit
- Green group — we go together
- Blue group — some might have strings to hold them down
- Purple group — Westminster stars for short, perhaps
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 — glimmer
- Green group — correspond well with
- Blue group — famous puppets
- Purple group — dog breeds, minus “er” sound
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 — glimmer (HINT, SUGGESTION, TOUCH, TRACE)
- Green group — correspond well with (COMPLEMENT, FIT, MATCH, SUIT)
- Blue group — famous puppets (LAMB CHOP, OSCAR, PUNCH, TRIUMPH)
- Purple group — dog breeds, minus “er” sound (BOX, POINT, RETREIVE, SET)
A couple of mistakes kept me away from a perfect game. Still, my overall streak is up into double digits. Here’s how I fared:
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟩🟨
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟪🟪🟩🟪
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
As soon as I saw TRIUMPH, my mind went to “the Insult Comic Dog” – even though I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen that puppet or really knew what it was. But LAMB CHOP was a dead giveaway to me that there was a group of puppets. OSCAR (the Grouch, from Sesame Street) and PUNCH (of “and Judy” fame) were obvious pairings, and I just made an assumption that TRIUMPH was a puppet instead of, like, a cartoon character.
I slipped up on my next attempt. I spotted the yellows, but in my haste, I accidentally selected COMPLEMENT instead of TOUCH, costing me a life. Silly mistake. I corrected that to get the yellows.
At that point, the greens seemed fairly clear, but there were five possibilities for it in my mind: MATCH, COMPLEMENT, SET, FIT and SUIT. I took a stab at the purples (without knowing what the connection was) with a guess of POINT, BOX, FIT and RETREIVE. That put me one away from a group. I then swapped out FIT for SET and that was that.
I never would have figured out the purples. In any case, the greens were left for another win.
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 saw the green group name, there was only ever going to be one option for today’s recommendation:
Being a theater kid at heart, I have a huge soft spot for certain musicals and Grease is one of them. If I remember correctly, it’s a great movie – even if some of the actors are clearly quite a bit older than the teenagers they’re playing – and the songs are obviously fantastic. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since the last time I watched it, so I should remedy that soon!
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! 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.
