NYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Saturday, March 30

Looking for Friday’s Connections hints and answers? You can find them here:

Hey, folks! I hope you’ve got some cracking plans lined up for this weekend. The weather’s getting a little nicer here at long last, so perhaps brunch is on the agenda for me. The world (well, the parts of it I can easily reach by public transit since I don’t drive) is my oyster today.

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers are coming right up.

How To Play Connections

In Connections, 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 horror movie franchises, a type of verb or rappers.

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 typically the hardest one to deduce. The purple group often involves wordplay, so bear that in mind.

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.

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:

• SMOKES
• JAMS
• CANS
• MITTENS
• PUFFS
• KETTLES
• SPOTS
• SALTS
• RAINDROPS
• PANTS
• PICKLES
• WHISKERS
• GASPS
• CURES
• BINDS
• HUFFS

And the hints for today’s groups are:

1. Yellows — hyperventilation, perhaps
2. Greens — make animal products last longer
3. Blues — difficult situations
4. Purples — stuff Maria von Trapp may have been into

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Need some extra help?

Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.

Today’s groups are…

• Yellow group — breathes heavily
• Green group — preserves, as meat
• Blue group — predicaments
• Purple group — things in “My Favorite Things”

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 — breathes heavily (GASPS, HUFFS, PANTS, PUFFS)
• Green group — preserves, as meat (CANS, CURES, SALTS, SMOKES)
• Blue group — predicaments (BINDS, JAMS, PICKLES, SPOTS)
• Purple group — things in “My Favorite Things” (KETTLES, MITTENS, RAINDROPS, WHISKERS)

No perfect game today, but I’m back in the winner’s circle with my first victory in a few days.

This was another slightly gimmicky game, with every word ending in “s” (all of yesterday’s words ended in “y”).

My first two guesses were mistakes. I went with SMOKES, CURES, PICKLES and SALTS, leaving me one away from a group. Swapping out SALTS for JAMS was a step in the wrong direction, but I finally corrected that error and got the greens. The game then bunched together the blues, making those easier to spot.

Having a less-crowded game board can often help me pinpoint the purples, and it was here that I realized several of the words are mentioned in the song “My Favorite Things” — even though I’ve never watched The Sound of Music. (For shame, I know.) I make it a personal rule not to Google anything when I’m playing Connections, so I wasn’t entirely sure I had the right group before I submitted it. However, I had a pretty good idea about the yellows at that point. It turns out I was correct on both counts.

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog for hints and the solution for Sunday’s game if you need them.

P.S. There’s only one song I could possibly drop in for you today. Julie Andrews is magnificent. I really should finally watch The Sound of Music. (Tony Bennett’s version of the song is great too, and I’m a big fan of Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings,” which interpolates it.)