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Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →To solve NYT Connections, find four sets of four words that share a link, but do not submit the first plausible quartet you see. The New York Times says each puzzle has one solution and deliberately includes words that could fit multiple categories. Build candidate groups, test alternate meanings, and check that the remaining words can still make sense before you spend a guess.
What are the rules of NYT Connections?
The New York Times gives players 16 words and asks them to sort them into four groups of four. A connection might be a familiar category, such as four kinds of fish, or a structural pattern, such as four words that begin with FIRE. The official Help Center says each puzzle has exactly one solution and is meant to be tricky because words may fit into multiple categories. A quartet that looks convincing on its own may still be wrong if one of its words belongs in a stronger competing group.
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The puzzle marks the solved groups with four colors—Yellow, Green, Blue, and Purple. The Help Center describes Yellow as easiest and Purple as trickiest; it does not define a fixed category type for any color. Treat color as a relative difficulty cue, not evidence that a group must be literal, thematic, or based on wordplay. See the current NYT Connections Help Center for official rules and access details.
How do you spot the word groups?
1. Read all 16 words before choosing
Scan the whole board once. Note obvious links, but hold off on submitting them. Seeing the full set makes it easier to notice that a word has another plausible meaning or role elsewhere on the board.
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2. State each possible connection in a short phrase
For a candidate quartet, try to explain the link as “types of ___,” “synonyms for ___,” “words that precede ___,” or “words containing ___.” Then check that the same explanation fits all four words—not just the three most obvious ones. If ordinary meanings do not account for a set, inspect spelling, sound, prefixes, suffixes, and familiar phrases. These are solving prompts, not official NYT category rules.
3. Check every word’s alternative home
Ask whether any word in your candidate group fits another likely category just as well. If it does, pause and examine the rest of the board rather than treating a plausible connection as settled. The game’s one-solution design means the intended groups must work together as a complete partition, not merely as four isolated ideas.
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4. Test the words left behind
After tentatively setting aside a quartet, look at the other 12 words. Can you see a credible route to three more groups? If the leftovers seem unrelated, reconsider the candidate or look for a shared phrase, hidden string, or other structural link. A strategy guide from Melio Games recommends checking alternate placements and using leftovers to test a hypothesis; its examples come from Melio’s own grids, so treat this as general advice rather than an NYT rule. Read the Melio Games strategy guide.
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5. Spend guesses on the strongest complete explanation
Compare candidate groups by how well the link explains all four words, whether it accounts for competing meanings, and whether the remaining words still look groupable. A pattern supported by every member and compatible with the rest of the board is a stronger submission than a tempting match that leaves awkward exceptions.
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How should you use feedback and color clues?
Use “one away” feedback to revisit a member
If the game displays a “one away” response, treat it as a reason to test a substitution in the set you selected, not as confirmation that the category itself is correct. The NYT Help Center page cited here does not document that interface response, so this is practical guidance for players who encounter it rather than an official rule established by that page.
Let colors set expectations, not dictate categories
Yellow is the easiest group and Purple the trickiest, according to the Help Center. That ranking can suggest relative difficulty, but it does not prove that Yellow is a straightforward meaning-based group or Purple a wordplay group. Solve from the words and their relationships, not from an assumed color recipe.
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What does published performance research say?
A 2025 Association for Computational Linguistics paper evaluated human participants and language models on a Connections benchmark under three configurations: One Try, No Hints, and Full Hints. In that study, human performance was 56% in the No Hints setup and 60.67% in the Full Hints setup. Those are results from the paper’s benchmark conditions, not success rates for all people playing the daily NYT puzzle. Read the 2025 ACL paper.
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Where can you play and practice?
The NYT Help Center says the daily puzzle releases at midnight in the player’s timezone and is available on listed digital platforms without registration or sign-in. It also says Connections Bot is limited to All Access, Home Delivery, and Games subscribers, while the archive—which includes puzzles back to June 12, 2023—is limited to All Access and Games subscribers. These access details can change; check the current NYT Help Center page for the latest terms.
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