Looking for Friday’s Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hello! I hope you’re having a wonderful weekend. I can’t really believe that November’s over already. How did that happen?
I’m starting to think about my plans for next year. I’m hoping to take a small step back from work to free up some time for a project I’ve had in mind for a while (don’t worry, this column isn’t going anywhere!). I’ll need to take a look at my budget to see if it’s feasible. But if so, it could be personally satisfying while helping some folks out.
I’m also thinking about starting to stream on YouTube when I’m playing certain games, partly to keep myself accountable as I try to both work through my backlog and partly to make sure I check out new titles regularly. A more rigorous schedule could be good for me.
Anyway, today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Saturday, November 30, 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…
- ROCK
- PALM
- FAST
- MODERN
- NAIL
- SWING
- SCREW
- KNUCKLE
- ACE
- TAP
- SWIPE
- CURVE
- JAZZ
- LIFT
- CRUSH
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — how to get your groove on
- Green group — pilfer
- Blue group — excellent job
- Purple group — catchers’ calls
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 — dance styles
- Green group — steal
- Blue group — perform well on
- Purple group — ____ball pitches
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 — dance styles (JAZZ, MODERN, SWING, TAP)
- Green group — steal (LIFT, PALM, POCKET, SWIPE)
- Blue group — perform well on (ACE, CRUSH, NAIL, ROCK)
- Purple group — ____ball pitches (CURVE, FAST, KNUCKLE, SCREW)
No perfect game today, but I got the threepeat. Here’s how I fared:
🟦🟨🟩🟪
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨
But for a careless mistake at the beginning, I would have had what I call a “true perfect” game for only the second time ever. A true perfect game means you get the purple, blue, green and yellow groups in that order without losing a life.
I took a gamble with ROCK, SWING, SWIPE and CURVE as in a group of back and forth motions, but no dice. I wasn’t close to a group. But I was able to get the purples after SCREW and FAST gelled together in my mind. Two baseball-related groups in two days seems like overkill but sure.
I’d had the blues in my mind for a couple of minutes, but it took me a while to realize that ROCK was the fourth word. TAP and SWIPE could have been the foundation of a red herring in that they’re both smartphone actions. However, I deduced that SWIPE should go with the greens. That left the yellows for a mildly frustrating victory.
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. After catching up with Abbott Elementary recently, it was time to try a new show. I went with one I’d been meaning to check out for a while. Friends, I am very happy with that decision.
I have long loved the film What We Do In The Shadows and the spin-off series had been on my radar for years. I’m about a season and a half in now and it’s extremely funny. It continues the cutting humor of the movie, but the mockumentary focuses on a group of vampires in Staten Island instead of a bunch in New Zealand. The central cast all put in terrific performances, and the inclusion of an energy vampire is quite brilliant.
It’s laugh-out-loud stuff (there’s a joke in the trailer below that had me cracking up) and occasionally a little scary. I’m looking forward to a bunch of episodes this weekend:
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.
