NYT Connections #544 was published on December 6, 2024. The safest route is to use the four hints below first, then open the spoiler section for the complete groups: BAFFLE, CURSE, “TOY STORY” CHARACTERS, FAMILIARLY, and COLLOQUIAL SUFFIXES.
How Connections #544 works
Connections is a free New York Times daily word game. You get 16 words and must sort them into four groups of four. A wrong submission counts as a mistake, and four mistakes end the game.
The December 6 grid
| PUZZLE | MANIA | BUZZ | GATE |
| CORE | HEX | VEX | REX |
| SLINKY | STUMP | POX | PERPLEX |
| JINX | HAMM | SPELL | PILLED |
Spoiler-free hints
Try to form a group before reading the next clue. The categories become progressively less literal, with the final group relying on word construction.
Yellow hint
A state of confusion, or verbs meaning to befuddle or astound.
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Green hint
Think of a broomstick and of something used to bring bad luck upon someone.
Blue hint
Playful Pixar pals associated with the line “you’ve got a friend in them.”
Purple hint
“The people have spoken”: look for informal endings that attach to other words.
Full answers for Connections #544
Spoiler warning: The complete groups and every word are below.
| Category | Words | Why they fit |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow — BAFFLE | PERPLEX, PUZZLE, STUMP, VEX | Each is a verb for confusing or puzzling someone. |
| Green — CURSE | HEX, JINX, POX, SPELL | Each can refer to a curse or bad-luck spell. |
| Blue — “TOY STORY” CHARACTERS, FAMILIARLY | BUZZ, HAMM, REX, SLINKY | These are the familiar names of Toy Story characters: Buzz Lightyear, Hamm, Rex and Slinky. |
| Purple — COLLOQUIAL SUFFIXES | CORE, GATE, MANIA, PILLED | They form informal compounds such as cottagecore, scandal “-gate” terms, mania labels and “redpilled”-style expressions. |
How to solve the trickiest groups
Separate the obvious confusion verbs
PERPLEX, PUZZLE, STUMP and VEX are all direct synonyms for confusing someone. Their meanings are stronger and cleaner than the tempting letter-based patterns elsewhere in the grid, so this is the most straightforward place to begin.
Spot the curse vocabulary
HEX, JINX and SPELL are clear supernatural or bad-luck terms. POX is the trap: it can look like an ordinary illness word, but “pox” also appears in curse-like expressions and completes this set.
Recognize the Toy Story names
BUZZ, HAMM, REX and SLINKY are character names rather than general nouns in this category. The wording “familiarly” matters because the entries use the short names players know from the films, not full character descriptions.
Build the informal compounds
The purple group is the least semantic. CORE, GATE, MANIA and PILLED work as productive endings in modern informal compounds. “-gate” is used for a scandal, “-mania” describes an intense craze, “-core” labels an aesthetic, and “-pilled” signals a particular ideological or cultural outlook.
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Why the grid can mislead you
- Several entries end in X, including HEX, VEX, REX and PERPLEX. The shared spelling is a visual trap rather than a category.
- BUZZ, HAMM, REX and SLINKY can initially look like unrelated everyday words or names; their shared Toy Story connection is the key.
- POX may pull you toward a medical grouping, while PILLED can appear to be part of a past-tense verb. Both belong elsewhere.
- The puzzle shifts from ordinary meanings to franchise recognition and suffix construction, so a plausible synonym is not enough on its own.
Difficulty and solving approach
Contemporary coverage described this puzzle qualitatively as hard, but no standardized difficulty percentage or solve-rate was published for game #544. If you want to preserve the challenge, use only the yellow-through-purple hints and submit groups as you find them. If you are protecting a streak, identify the four obvious confusion verbs first, then test the curse terms before tackling the character and suffix groups.
Quick Recap
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