Connections
Sort sixteen words into four groups of four before you make four mistakes.
Every day: One grid of sixteen words a day, the same for every player: sort them into four groups of four that share a link, with four mistakes allowed. New puzzle: Midnight local time.
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Connections gives you sixteen words and asks you to split them into four groups that share something. Some links are plain, some hide in wordplay, and several words always look like they belong to two groups at once. A new grid arrives every day.
About Connections
Connections is the New York Times' daily grouping puzzle. It came out of the paper's internal game jam, spent about a year in development and opened in beta on June 12, 2023. Every grid is written by Wyna Liu, who also edits crosswords for the Times, and it has become the second most played Times game after Wordle.
A round starts with a four-by-four grid of words. You select four you think belong together and submit them. If you are right, the tiles lock into a coloured bar that names the category. If you are wrong, you lose one of your four mistakes. Three away from a group, and the game tells you that you are one off.
The colours mark difficulty: yellow is the most direct group, then green, then blue, with purple saved for the trickiest link, often a pun, a hidden word or a shared prefix. The puzzle is built around red herrings: five or six words will seem to fit an obvious theme, and only four of them actually do.
If you have watched the Connecting Wall on the British quiz show Only Connect, the idea will feel familiar, though here there is no clock and you have four lives. A sports edition written by The Athletic uses the same rules with sports themes. Connections suits anyone who likes crosswords, trivia or spotting patterns, and it takes a few minutes over coffee.
How to play Connections
- Read all sixteen words before you touch any of them.
- Tap four words you think share a link.
- Press Submit to check your guess.
- If the four are right, they become a coloured bar showing the category.
- If they are wrong, you lose one of four mistakes; a message tells you when you were one word away.
- Keep going until you have found all four groups or used up your mistakes.
Tips
- Look for the words that could fit two groups first; those decide the puzzle.
- Solve the group you are surest of, even if it is not the yellow one, so fewer words are left to confuse you.
- For the purple group, try hidden words, homophones, words that take the same prefix or suffix, and words that form a phrase with one extra word.
- Use Shuffle when you are stuck; seeing the words in a new order breaks the obvious pairings.
- Treat a one away message as a hint: swap only one word at a time.
Questions
Is Connections free?
Yes. Today's puzzle is free to play on the web and in the NYT Games app. The archive of past puzzles needs a Times games subscription.
When does a new Connections puzzle come out?
A new grid is available at midnight in your local time.
How many mistakes can you make?
Four. On the fourth wrong guess the round ends and the remaining groups are revealed.
What do the colours mean?
They show difficulty: yellow is the easiest group, then green, blue and purple, the hardest.
Who writes Connections?
Wyna Liu, an editor at The New York Times, writes the puzzles.
Games like Connections
Pinpoint
LinkedIn daily that also asks what links a set of words, one clue at a time
Strands
The Times grid that hides a theme you have to work out
Crossclimb
LinkedIn word ladder built from short trivia clues and wordplay
Wordle
The Times daily word puzzle most Connections players start with
Spelling Bee
Another Times daily for people who like turning words over
Letter Boxed
Use all twelve letters around the square in as few chained words as you can.
Connections: Sports Edition
Sort 16 sports terms into four groups of four, with four mistakes allowed.
23 Words
Unscramble 23 words in a row, with 30 seconds for each.