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NYT Connections gives you 16 words and asks you to divide them into four groups of four. Each group shares a theme, but the puzzle is designed so that several words can appear to fit more than one theme. You win by finding the single intended solution before making four incorrect submissions; the fourth mistake is effectively your last failed attempt.
What NYT Connections is
Connections is a daily word game from The New York Times. The Help Center describes it as “a word game that challenges players to find themes between words.” Instead of finding a definition, spelling a word, or guessing a hidden phrase, you classify a mixed list into four coherent sets.
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A standard puzzle contains 16 words. Your task is to identify four groups, with exactly four words in each group. A group might contain four kinds of fish, four words that begin with the same word, four related people, or a less literal relationship such as words that become something else when preceded by a particular term.
The official examples include Bass, Flounder, Salmon and Trout as a group of fish. Another group can be formed by words beginning with “FIRE”: Ant, Drill, Island and Opal. The connection is not always a shared dictionary definition; it can be a spelling, phrase, title, name, category, or wordplay relationship.
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Every puzzle has exactly one complete solution. The editors deliberately include misleading overlaps, so a set of four words that looks convincing may not be the set the puzzle intends.
The words and categories are curated by New York Times editors using the Oxford Dictionary. That editorial process is why ordinary words can carry a specialized sense in one puzzle and why a seemingly obvious grouping may be a decoy.
The board, objective, and submission rules
Sixteen words become four groups
At the start of a standard game, all 16 entries appear together in a four-by-four board. You select four words that you believe share a connection, then submit the selection. A correct group disappears from the board, leaving 12 words, then eight, then four.
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The game ends when you have identified all four groups or run out of allowed mistakes. There is no separate point value for yellow, green, blue, or purple groups. The colors communicate relative difficulty.
One solution does not mean one obvious path
“Exactly one solution” refers to the complete arrangement of all 16 words, not necessarily to the first group you notice. A word can legitimately seem to belong to two different categories. The correct interpretation is the one that allows the remaining words to form three other complete groups.
For example, four entries may all be associated with a common object, while three of those entries also share a more specific word pattern. Submitting the broader-looking set can be wrong if it leaves an impossible remainder. Treat every proposed group as a hypothesis that must fit the whole board.
What the yellow, green, blue, and purple categories mean
Each solved group receives one color based on its intended difficulty:
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware match- Yellow: the easiest category, usually the most direct or familiar relationship.
- Green: a moderately difficult category that may require a little more knowledge or a less literal connection.
- Blue: another intermediate category, often dependent on a specific theme, phrase, or cultural reference.
- Purple: the trickiest category, commonly involving wordplay, spelling, a shared prefix or suffix, or an especially narrow reference.
The displayed order is yellow, green, blue, then purple, from easiest to hardest. Colors do not multiply points, change the number of mistakes you are allowed, or create a second scoring system. They are labels for category difficulty after the puzzle has been constructed.
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Do not assume that the purple group must be solved last. A difficult-looking category may become obvious once one or two ambiguous words have been removed, while a yellow-looking group can be a deliberate trap if its words also fit another theme.
How many mistakes you can make
The practical limit
You can submit an incorrect group up to four times. The New York Times statistics page records results from zero through four mistakes, and defines a win as completing a puzzle in under four mistakes. In practical terms, protect the fourth guess: once you have made four incorrect submissions, the puzzle is treated as a failure rather than a win.
That means a winning result can show zero, one, two, or three mistakes. A result at four mistakes is the boundary recorded by the statistics system, but it is not a successful “four-mistake win.” The game may reveal the solution after the final failed attempt.
What counts as a mistake
Each submitted set of four that is not one of the puzzle’s four intended groups consumes a mistake. Merely selecting words, changing your selection, or rearranging the board before pressing the submit control does not use an attempt. If you are uncertain, leave the words selected or clear them and continue looking; do not submit a speculative set just to test it.
Use the “one away” signal carefully
When a selected set contains three correct members and one incorrect member, the game can indicate that you are one word away. That information is useful, but it does not identify which word should be removed or which remaining word should replace it. Re-evaluate the whole candidate group rather than swapping words at random, because each additional submission still costs an attempt.
How to play NYT Connections step by step
- Open the daily puzzle. Connections is available in the NYT Games app, at NYTimes.com/games/connections, through NYTimes.com/The Athletic, and in the News app. The daily puzzle is released at midnight in your own time zone.
- Read all 16 words before selecting anything. Look for repeated structures, obvious categories, names, abbreviations, prefixes, suffixes, and words that can follow or precede the same term.
- Mark the strongest relationship mentally. Start with a group whose connection is specific enough to distinguish it from a broad association. Four kinds of fish is stronger than four things that can be found outdoors, for example.
- Test the remaining board. Before submitting, remove the proposed four in your mind and ask whether the other 12 words can still make three complete groups. If the remainder contains an orphan word or an implausibly broad category, hold the group back.
- Select exactly four entries. Tap or click the four words you want to submit. Check that you have not included a tempting synonym or a word that belongs more naturally to another group.
- Submit only when the set is globally plausible. A correct group disappears and its color is revealed. An incorrect group costs one mistake; a near miss may be identified as one word away.
- Rebuild your hypotheses after every reveal. The removal of four words often clarifies a category that was impossible to see on the full board. Reconsider words that had two possible meanings.
- Stop before the fourth error if possible. Once three mistakes have been used, require a particularly strong reason for the next submission. Use the remaining board to prove the candidate rather than guessing.
A reliable solving method for fewer mistakes
1. Prefer precise categories over broad associations
Connections rewards a relationship that can be stated narrowly. “Things associated with water” is too broad to be a safe group because many unrelated entries may fit. “Types of fish” or “words that can follow FIRE” gives you a testable rule.
Ask yourself whether every selected word fits the same grammatical or factual explanation. If one word needs a different explanation from the other three, it is probably the intruder.
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2. Separate literal, linguistic, and cultural links
Sort possible links into different types. Literal categories include animals, foods, occupations, or objects. Linguistic categories include words that start with a given string, end with a given string, rhyme, or become a phrase when paired with another word. Cultural categories can involve names, titles, characters, brands, or historical references.
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Keeping these types separate helps expose decoys. Four words may all be names of places, while three of them also complete a common phrase; the phrase-based group is often the intended one.
3. Hold ambiguous words aside
If one entry has two plausible meanings, do not force it into the first attractive group. Circle the three words that are unambiguously related and wait for the fourth to emerge after another category is removed. An ambiguous word is often the hinge that makes the puzzle difficult.
4. Use the remainder as a proof
A valid group must improve the entire board. After identifying four candidates, mentally cross them out and inspect the 12 left behind. Can you describe three groups of four without stretching a definition? If not, return the candidates to the board and test a different interpretation.
5. Treat near misses as information, not permission to guess
A one-away indication confirms that three selected words belong together, but the fourth may be a decoy that belongs to a different category. Compare the unselected words with the selected outlier and look for a stronger four-word set before using another submission.
6. Solve in any color order
The color ranking is not a required sequence. You can solve a purple category first if its wordplay is clear, and you can leave a yellow-looking group untouched if it overlaps another category. The best order is the order that reduces ambiguity on the remaining board.
Why the puzzle feels deceptively difficult
The difficulty comes from controlled overlap. Editors choose words that have multiple common associations, then arrange them so that a plausible grouping competes with the intended grouping. A word can be a type of animal, part of a title, and a word that follows a particular prefix all at once.
Broad categories are especially dangerous because they make it easy to find four words without proving that those four belong together. The puzzle is not asking whether each word can be connected to the theme in isolation; it is asking whether the four-word set is the unique arrangement that leaves three equally coherent sets.
Some categories also depend on a specific sense of a word. A familiar word may be used as a proper name, a verb, a title fragment, or a spelling component. If a candidate group works only by switching between different senses, treat it as suspect until the rest of the board supports it.
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Results, statistics, and Connections Bot
What the statistics page records
After a puzzle, the statistics view can show your completed puzzles, win rate, current streak, maximum streak, perfect puzzles, and a histogram of results from zero through four mistakes. A perfect puzzle is a completed game with no incorrect submissions.
The streak is tied to the daily game. Playing an older puzzle from the archive can contribute to your completed-puzzle and mistake statistics, but archived play does not change the daily streak.
Connections Bot analysis
Connections Bot can provide a difficulty assessment, your personal rating, the order and difficulty of the categories, common mistakes, and a guess-by-guess analysis. The Help Center lists the Bot as a feature for All Access, Home Delivery, and Games subscribers, so availability depends on the subscription associated with your account.
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Eligible subscribers can access an archive reaching back to June 12, 2023. Archive access is separate from the daily release: it lets you play older puzzles, while the daily streak remains based on the current daily puzzle.
Where and when to play
You can play the standard game in the NYT Games app, on the Connections page at NYTimes.com, through NYTimes.com/The Athletic, or in the News app. The daily puzzle is released at midnight in the player’s time zone, so two people in different regions may receive the same daily puzzle at different moments.
Use the same account if you want your results and eligible archive play associated with one statistics record. Subscription requirements apply to features such as Connections Bot and the archive, not to the general fact that Connections is offered on the official web and app platforms.
Standard Connections versus Connections 3×3
Connections 3×3 is an official bonus-puzzle variation. It uses a smaller board and groups of three rather than four, but it keeps the same basic challenge of finding shared themes among overlapping possibilities.
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|---|---|---|
| Board size | 16 items | 9 items |
| Items per group | 4 | 3 |
| Number of groups | 4 | 3 |
| Colors | Yellow, green, blue, purple | Yellow, blue, purple |
| Access context | Daily Connections game | Official bonus puzzle |
| Mistake allowance | Up to four incorrect submissions; the fourth is the failure boundary | Up to four incorrect submissions; the fourth is the failure boundary |
Because 3×3 groups contain only three entries, a broad relationship can look convincing more quickly. Apply the same discipline: identify a precise rule, check the remainder, and avoid spending the final attempt on an unproven set.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
Submitting the first four related words
Why it fails: The four words may share a broad association while three belong to a more specific intended category.
Better approach: State the exact relationship in one sentence and test whether the remaining words form three complete groups.
Assuming every category is literal
Why it fails: Connections can use prefixes, suffixes, phrase completions, spelling patterns, names, or titles.
Better approach: When literal categories stall, inspect how words combine with another word or how they begin and end.
Forcing an ambiguous word into a group
Why it fails: The ambiguous entry may be the decoy that creates the overlap.
Better approach: Keep it aside and solve the categories whose members are unambiguous first.
Ignoring the mistake counter
Why it fails: The fourth incorrect submission is effectively the last failed attempt, even though the statistics view includes results through four mistakes.
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Confusing difficulty color with score
Why it fails: Yellow, green, blue, and purple describe category difficulty; they do not award different points.
Better approach: Use the colors as a post-solve explanation of difficulty, not as a scoring strategy or required solving order.
A compact checklist before you submit
- Do all four words follow one precise rule?
- Does the rule use the same sense or grammatical pattern for every word?
- Could one selected word fit another category more strongly?
- Can the 12 remaining words be divided into three groups of four?
- Have you checked for a prefix, suffix, phrase, spelling, name, or title connection?
- How many incorrect submissions have you already used?
If you cannot answer the remainder question, keep solving instead of submitting. The strongest move in Connections is often waiting until an ambiguous word has nowhere else to go.
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