NYT Connections puzzle #348 is the game released Friday, May 24, 2024. If you want to solve it yourself, start with the spoiler-safe hints below; the four category names and complete word sets follow the warning.
Hints for Connections #348
Spoiler warning: The hints below are followed by the category answers and all 16 words.
Try these from least revealing to most revealing. Stop when you have enough to make a guess:
- Look for a group related to water and where it goes.
- Consider foods that can describe something overly sentimental or saccharine.
- One group shares something people can crack; CODE and BONES are useful associations.
- For the last group, think of a word that can follow each of four different words.
Answers for NYT Connections #348
The four categories and their words are:
| Category | Words |
|---|---|
| Conduits for water removal | DRAIN, DUCT, PIPE, SEWER |
| Food products associated with sentimentality | CHEESE, CORN, SAP, SCHMALTZ |
| Things to crack | EGG, KNUCKLES, SMILE, WINDOW |
| ___ CHANGE | CHUMP, CLIMATE, LOOSE, SEA |
Why the board can be tricky
Connections presents 16 words and asks players to sort them into four groups of four. The New York Times says each puzzle has one solution and is designed so words can plausibly fit multiple categories. That overlap is the source of much of the misdirection: a familiar association may be real, but it may not be the intended four-word set.
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For this board, the last category depends on completing a phrase: chump change, climate change, loose change, and sea change. Several other groupings rely on words being used in a particular figurative sense rather than only their most literal meaning.
Tips for solving a Connections puzzle
- Start with the most literal relationship you can see, then check that all four words fit it naturally.
- Keep alternate meanings and common phrases in mind; a word may belong to a phrase-completion group rather than a topic group.
- If three words seem to fit, look for a fourth before locking in the set. Also consider whether one of those words fits a competing group better.
- Use the shuffle control if the current layout is making patterns hard to spot. Changing positions can make a connection easier to notice.
The game uses color-coded difficulty, with yellow the easiest and purple the trickiest. The NYT Help Center says the category words are curated by editors using the Oxford Dictionary. A scholarly paper on lateral-thinking puzzles describes this general kind of task as requiring both common linguistic knowledge and abstract association; that is useful context, not a claim about the editors’ specific intent for #348.
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Playing Connections and accessing older puzzles
According to the NYT Help Center, the daily game releases at midnight in the player’s timezone and is available on the NYT Games website, Games app, and News app. NYT describes Connections as free to play. Its full archive, which goes back to June 12, 2023, is available to Games subscribers, and archive progress requires an NYT account. Access terms can change.
Connections Bot offers puzzle difficulty, ratings, category information, mistake patterns, and a guess-by-guess review; the Help Center lists it for All Access, Home Delivery, and Games subscribers. The Connections Companion is a community forum that anyone can read, but its comments may include spoilers.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsThere is no verified population solve rate, difficulty score, or other player-performance statistic for puzzle #348 here. The NYT Help Center says account statistics cover puzzles played from June 15, 2024 onward, after this puzzle’s release date.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.A separate Connections puzzle book
Simon & Schuster / Authors Equity lists a hardcover collection, Connections: Find the Common Threads in 100+ Puzzles of Wit and Wordplay, by The New York Times Games and Wyna Liu. Its catalog lists ISBN 9798893312607 and a publication date of October 27, 2026. It is a separate collection of puzzles, not an answer source for #348.
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