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NYT Connections game #949 for Thursday, January 15, 2026, asks you to sort 16 words into four groups of four. Start with the spoiler-light nudges below, or jump to the full solution when you’re ready. The answers are reported by TechRadar and Forbes.
How to play Connections
Connections presents 16 words and asks you to arrange them into four groups of four. The reporting guides describe the daily game as free to play on the NYT website or in the Games app. Forbes says its archive of previous puzzles is available with an All Access or Games subscription; subscription packaging may change.
Hints for January 15, 2026
Stop here if you want a small nudge without seeing the category names.
- One group is used for outdoor plant care.
- One group describes things that do not move.
- One group shares a flaky quality.
- One group hides two men’s names in each word.
One answer word from each group
These single-word nudges reveal more than the clues above, but not the full categories.
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- Gardening tools: SHOVEL
- Unmoving: STATIC
- Things that come in flakes: SALT
- Two-name wordplay: LEVITATE
Category names
- Yellow: Gardening tools
- Green: Unmoving
- Blue: Things that come in flakes
- Purple: Words formed by two men’s names
Full Connections solution
The full word bank is CEREAL, STATIC, MELTED, SNOW, LEVITATE, SALT, PATRON, SHOVEL, HOSE, STATIONARY, SPADE, JACKAL, FROZEN, RAKE, DANDRUFF, and STILL.
| Color | Category | Words |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Gardening tools | HOSE, RAKE, SHOVEL, SPADE |
| Green | Unmoving | FROZEN, STATIC, STATIONARY, STILL |
| Blue | Things that come in flakes | CEREAL, DANDRUFF, SALT, SNOW |
| Purple | Words formed by two men’s names | JACKAL, LEVITATE, MELTED, PATRON |
Why the purple group fits
Each word can be split into two name-like sounds: JACKAL becomes Jack Al, LEVITATE becomes Levi Tate, MELTED becomes Mel Ted, and PATRON becomes Pat Ron. The joke is phonetic wordplay, not a claim about real people or the words’ origins.
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