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These hints and answers are for Sunday, February 9, 2025: NYT Connections puzzle #609. Start with the category nudges, then reveal the group names or full tiles only if you need them.
Hints for Connections #609
Connections asks you to sort 16 words into four groups of four. The category hints below move from broad clues to the actual group names; stop before the next section if you want to keep solving.
- Yellow: Very large
- Green: Broth essentials
- Blue: An independent human
- Purple: Big-screen titles
Category names
Spoiler warning: The group names below reveal the themes. The complete tiles follow in the next section.
- Yellow: MASSIVE
- Green: USED WHEN SERVING SOUP
- Blue: SOMEBODY
- Purple: SCI-FI FRANCHISES
Full answers for February 9, 2025
Full spoilers: The tiles for all four groups are listed below.
- Yellow — MASSIVE: GIANT, JUMBO, MONSTER, SUPER
- Green — USED WHEN SERVING SOUP: BOWL, LADLE, POT, SPOON
- Blue — SOMEBODY: CHARACTER, INDIVIDUAL, PARTY, PERSON
- Purple — SCI-FI FRANCHISES: ALIEN, AVATAR, DUNE, TRON
Why the board may suggest the wrong grouping
SUPER, BOWL, and PARTY appear among the answers, which can prompt a Super Bowl connection. That association is a decoy: there is no Super Bowl-themed group in #609. Look at how each word fits the intended category instead.
Playing or replaying Connections
The New York Times describes Connections as a game of finding themes among 16 words and grouping them into sets of four. The colors run from yellow, the easiest, to purple, the trickiest; the Times also notes that some words can look as though they fit more than one theme, even though each puzzle has exactly one solution. Its Help Center says, “Words and categories are curated by editors using the Oxford Dictionary.” See the NYT Help Center for Connections information.
Rank #2
The daily puzzle appears at midnight in the player’s timezone and can be played through the NYT Games app, nytimes.com/games/connections, nytimes.com/theathletic, and the NYT News app. The Times says the daily game is free to play. Its archive of older puzzles reaches back to June 12, 2023, and requires an All Access or Games subscription.
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