To solve NYT Connections without hints, look for four words that share one precise rule, test that rule against the entire 16-word board, and hold off submitting until it explains the set better than competing groupings do. Connections is designed to include overlapping possibilities: the New York Times says each puzzle has one solution, but words may appear to fit multiple categories.
Know what the board is asking you to do
Each Connections puzzle presents 16 words. Your task is to divide them into four groups of four, with each group linked by a shared category or pattern. The New York Times Help Center describes the puzzle as having “exactly one solution” while being tricky because words “could fit into multiple categories.” That overlap is the core challenge: a set of four that looks plausible may not be the intended set.
The categories are marked by difficulty: yellow is easiest and purple is trickiest. The colors are a difficulty ranking, not instructions to solve in that order or a promise that a particular color uses a particular kind of wordplay. The daily puzzle releases at midnight in your timezone. NYT says its archive goes back to June 12, 2023, and is available to All Access and Games subscribers; check the official Connections help page for current access details.
Use a deliberate no-hint solving routine
- Read all 16 words before submitting. Scan the whole board first. Jot down possible relationships if useful, but treat them as candidates rather than commitments. A full-board view makes it easier to spot words that could belong to more than one apparent theme.
- State the rule for each candidate group. Be able to explain what connects all four words in one short, repeatable sentence. “They feel related” is not enough; a precise category or word pattern gives you something you can check against the other tiles.
- Test the candidate against overlaps. Ask whether a fifth word could fit the same broad theme, or whether one of your four has a stronger, more specific connection elsewhere. When five words seem to qualify, look for the tighter rule that selects exactly four.
- Check both meanings and word forms. Consider synonyms and shared categories, but also look for shared prefixes or suffixes, words that can precede or follow the same word, hidden words, homophones, and anagrams. Less literal wordplay is worth checking especially when the obvious meaning-based groups leave an awkward set of four.
- Submit the best-supported group, not merely the easiest-looking one. If a group has a clear rule and survives the overlap check, enter it. Once a correct group is removed, reassess the smaller board: fewer remaining tiles can make a second relationship easier to see.
- Use elimination and a shuffle when you get stuck. Solve other well-supported groups before spending a guess on a doubtful one. If the layout has you fixating on a particular pairing, shuffle the tiles to break that visual anchor, then inspect the remaining words again.
This workflow is a practical strategy, not an official NYT solving method. NYT’s rules establish that category overlap is intentional; the step-by-step approach is drawn from secondary strategy guidance.
Recognize the traps that lead to rushed guesses
A broad theme that fits too many words
A plausible category can still be a decoy if it appears to include five or more tiles. Instead of submitting the first four that fit, compare them with the extra candidate. Look for a narrower relationship that accounts for exactly four words, or a structural pattern that gives one of the apparent matches a better home.
A word with more than one plausible role
Do not assume a word belongs with the group suggested by its most familiar meaning. Ask what each candidate group needs from that word and whether its spelling or another meaning creates a stronger connection elsewhere. The intended grouping is the one that makes a complete, precise set, not simply one that sounds reasonable.
Rank #2
Four leftovers that do not make a clear category
If the remaining tiles resist an ordinary meaning-based explanation, test word structure: a shared word before or after each tile, a hidden word, or another sound- or spelling-based connection. Purple is the most difficult category, and a secondary analysis of past puzzles found wordplay was common there, but color alone does not identify the mechanic.
The urge to solve in color order
Yellow is easiest and purple trickiest, but that ranking does not require you to submit yellow first. Choose the group with the strongest explanation. A clearly supported group of any color can reduce the board and help expose the others.
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What solver-performance research does—and does not—show
A 2024 study by Angel Yahir Loredo Lopez, Tyler McDonald, and Ali Emami describes a dataset of 358 Connections puzzles. In a separate experiment evaluating 100 puzzles, human participants scored 56% in the no-hints condition, while the best tested model, GPT-4, scored 45%; human performance in the full-hints condition was 60.67%. These are results under that study’s particular sample and conditions, not a prediction of how any individual will perform or a guarantee about current systems. The paper is available at arXiv.
NYT Game Solver also reports that its analysis of 1,191 past puzzles found about seven in ten purple categories involved wordplay, with fill-in-the-blank the most common type. This is a secondary-source analysis, not an official NYT statistic, so treat it as a reason to check for wordplay—not as a rule for solving today’s puzzle. See its strategy guide and analysis.
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