Looking for Thursday’s NYT Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey, gang! The weekend is almost upon us. One week closer to consistently warm weather! (At least for most of us in the northern hemisphere, sorry summer enjoyers in the south!)
I’m going to a show tonight that I’m very excited about. One of the cool things about living in Canada is that when bands I like who are incredibly successful in the U.K. but not so much here come to town, they often play in much smaller venues than I ever would see them at over there.
I last saw Stereophonics… a very long time ago in a 10,000-capacity arena. These days, the band can quite easily sell out a 60,000-capacity stadium on their home turf in Wales.
Here, though? They’re playing a venue that holds fewer than a thousand people. Can’t wait. I’m dragging along my partner, who had never heard of them until a few weeks ago. Hope she enjoys it!
Before we begin, I’ve set up a discussion group for NYT Connections and this column on Discord. We have a great little community over there and we chat about more than NYT games. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot.
It’s also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare(!) occasions that I mess something up since I don’t look at the comments or Twitter much.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Friday, March 21, are coming right up.
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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 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…
- COMPASS
- ICON
- SOAP
- WORLD
- LEGEND
- EXAM
- STENCIL
- CHART
- SCENE
- RULER
- MITZVAH
- CIRCLE
- GREAT
- SPHERE
- LION
- T-SQUARE
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — zeitgeist
- Green group — leading light in their field
- Blue group — cornerstones of brutalism and New Objectivity
- Purple group — “code” and “stool” would fit in here
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 — milieu
- Green group — luminary
- Blue group — architectural drawing tools
- Purple group — bar ____
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 — milieu (CIRCLE, SCENE, SPHERE, WORLD)
- Green group — luminary (GREAT, ICON, LEGEND, LION)
- Blue group — architectural drawing tools (COMPASS, RULER, STENCIL, T-SQUARE)
- Purple group — bar ____ (CHART, EXAM, MITZVAH, SOAP)
Ugh, I should have had a perfect game here, if not a reverse rainbow. Still, my streak is up to 24 wins. Here’s how I fared:
T-SQUARE instantly gave the game away for the blues, and then MITZVAH did for the purples. Wish I’d spotted those the other way around.
With only the yellows and greens left, I made a mistake! And I wasn’t even one away! I went with LEGEND, ICON, SPHERE and WORLD. I thought they all had something to do with a globe. At least I had the information that there were two words from each group.
I finally realized that LEGEND and ICON did go together, albeit with GREAT and LION (the word that was tripping me up here). That left the yellows for victory. And yes, I did figure out the connection before submitting those, why do you ask?
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 Saturday’s game if you need them.
P.S. Even though we’re rolling into the weekend and I have a show I’m really looking forward to this evening, I’m feeling a little melancholic. So where exactly do I go for today’s recommendation, also knowing that a Stereophonics song would not be very surprising?
I know exactly where, actually: “Papillon” by Editors, a track I think of as a moody banger.
I really like Editors. They’re such a smart band with a ton of great songs. I enjoyed their evolution from a guitar-forward band to one that made more use of synthesizers. “Papillion” is one of their most successful singles and a song that I enjoy very much:
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Call someone you love!
If you’re so inclined, please follow my blog for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Sharing this column with other people who play Connections would be appreciated too Also, follow me on Bluesky! It’s fun there.
