Connections #552 was published Saturday, December 14, 2024. Use the four progressive hints below before revealing the complete groups and explanations.
Hints for Connections #552
- Yellow: Think of kinds of fish.
- Green: Complete a familiar phrase heard at the end of an auction.
- Blue: Look for currencies used around the world.
- Purple: Find words that can come before “cup.”
The 16 words
Going, Sole, Real, Butter, Fluke, Sold, Diva, Sol, Once, Solo, Tang, Yuan, Pound, Twice, World, Mullet.
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Connections #552 answers
Yellow: Fish
Fluke, Mullet, Sole, Tang. Each is a name for a fish.
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Going, Once, Sold, Twice. Together, they evoke the auctioneer’s sequence: “going once, going twice, sold.”
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Blue: Global currencies
Pound, Real, Sol, Yuan. The guide associates the pound with the United Kingdom, the real with Brazil, the sol with Peru, and the yuan with China.
Purple: Words before “cup”
Butter, Diva, Solo, World. Each forms a familiar expression when followed by “cup.”
Rank #2
A useful way to untangle the overlaps
“Sole,” “Sol,” and “Solo” look similar, but they belong to three separate groups: fish, currency, and a word that precedes “cup.” Treating spelling resemblance as a possible trap can help keep the categories distinct. One possible solving route is to identify the fish and currency groups first, then use the remaining words to find the auction phrase and the “___ cup” expressions.
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How the game is described
Yahoo Entertainment’s guide describes Connections as a puzzle in which players sort 16 words into four groups, with colors indicating group difficulty, and says the answers are revealed after four mistakes. Its reported difficulty rating for this puzzle is 3 out of 5, attributed to Connections Companion in 2024; that is a third-party rating, not an official New York Times measure.
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Solution details and hints are from Scott Younker’s Yahoo Entertainment guide, published December 14, 2024: “NYT Connections today hints and answers — Saturday, December 14 (#552)”. This is secondary coverage, not an official NYT solution transcript.
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