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NYT Connections puzzle #663 was published on April 4, 2025. The solved grid divides its 16 entries into four groups of four. The complete answer key, progressively stronger hints, and an explanation of the trickiest category are below.
If you are still playing, stop at the hint section before reading the spoiler table.
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The four answers for Connections #663
| Color | Category | Words | Why they fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow | What’s leftover | BALANCE, DIFFERENCE, REMAINDER, REST | Each word can describe an amount or portion left after something has been removed, spent, used, or compared. |
| Green | Car trip | CRUISE, DRIVE, RIDE, SPIN | All four can describe traveling by car, either as a noun for the journey or as a verb for taking one. |
| Blue | Baseball venues | DIAMOND, FIELD, PARK, STADIUM | Each can refer to a place where baseball is played; “diamond” is the infield, while the others describe the broader playing site. |
| Purple | Companies with “E” removed | BAY, HARMONY, INK, TRADE | Putting an initial E back produces eBay, eHarmony, eInk, and eTrade. |
The colors indicate the puzzle’s intended difficulty order: yellow is usually the most accessible, followed by green and blue, with purple generally requiring the most wordplay. In this grid, the purple set is especially difficult because the four visible entries look like ordinary words until the missing initial is recognized.
The complete 16-word grid
The original entries, shown together rather than sorted into their answers, were:
#1 Best Overall
- DRIVE
- PARK
- HARMONY
- BALANCE
- DIAMOND
- INK
- REST
- SPIN
- DIFFERENCE
- FIELD
- CRUISE
- BAY
- RIDE
- TRADE
- STADIUM
- REMAINDER
Seeing the unsorted grid matters because Connections is built around plausible overlaps. “Park,” for example, could suggest a car action, while “field” can be a general open area rather than a baseball venue. The intended category is determined by the strongest complete set of four, not by whether a single word can be made to fit several themes.
Progressive hints for April 4
Use these clues in order if you want help without immediately revealing every membership.
Yellow hint
Look for words meaning the amount that remains after something is taken away, consumed, or compared. One of the four can also describe money left in an account.
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Green hint
Think about a journey on the road. The four answers can describe traveling by car without naming a particular destination.
Blue hint
These are places or playing areas associated with baseball. One is the familiar shape inside the infield, and the others can describe the larger grounds.
Purple hint
Try adding the same first letter to each remaining word. The results are names associated with recognizable internet, technology, or commerce companies.
How to solve the puzzle step by step
1. Scan for a tight semantic cluster
Start by looking for words that have a narrow, natural relationship rather than forcing a broad association. BALANCE, DIFFERENCE, REMAINDER, and REST all point toward something left over, but they do so in slightly different ways. A balance is what remains in an account or after a calculation; a difference is what remains between two quantities; a remainder is what is left after division or subtraction; and rest means the part that remains.
This is a useful Connections pattern: a category may combine grammatical forms and related senses. Do not reject a candidate merely because one entry is used more often in mathematics and another in everyday speech. What matters is whether the same category label explains all four cleanly.
2. Separate travel words from location words
After the leftover group is recognized, CRUISE, DRIVE, RIDE, and SPIN form a natural car-travel set. A drive is the most direct match. A ride can mean the trip itself or being transported. A cruise is a leisurely drive, and a spin is an informal short trip. The words are not all strict synonyms, but they share the idea of going out in a vehicle.
PARK is the key decoy. It is something a driver does, yet it is not a car trip. Connections often places one tempting verb or related action beside a more precise set so that an almost-correct guess consumes a mistake.
3. Use the remaining sports vocabulary
DIAMOND, FIELD, PARK, and STADIUM describe baseball venues or playing spaces. A baseball diamond is the infield arrangement of the bases. A field is the playing surface, a park can mean the entire baseball ground, and a stadium is the larger facility containing the field and spectator seating.
The category is deliberately broad enough to include both the playing area and the building or grounds around it. That is why FIELD and STADIUM belong together even though one is the surface and the other is the facility.
4. Inspect the final four for a mechanical pattern
Once the first three groups are removed, BAY, HARMONY, INK, and TRADE remain. Their meanings do not form an obvious shared category. Instead, prepend E:
- BAY becomes eBay.
- HARMONY becomes eHarmony.
- INK becomes eInk.
- TRADE becomes eTrade.
The category is not “words that can follow e.” It is more specifically company names or company-style names written with an initial lowercase e, with that E removed from the grid entries. Recognizing the exact operation is important because Connections categories often depend on a consistent transformation rather than a loose association.
Why this grid creates false leads
“Park” overlaps with driving
Parking is a routine part of a car journey, so PARK may look like a fifth travel-related entry. It is excluded because the green group needs four words that describe the trip itself: CRUISE, DRIVE, RIDE, and SPIN. PARK instead completes the baseball-venue category.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors“Field” has many meanings
FIELD can refer to an academic discipline, an area of land, or a sports surface. Its baseball sense becomes decisive only when paired with DIAMOND, PARK, and STADIUM. When a word has several common definitions, wait for the surrounding three entries to establish the intended one.
“Balance” and “difference” are not identical
The yellow group does not require four perfect synonyms. BALANCE can mean an amount still owed or available, while DIFFERENCE is the amount separating two values. Both satisfy the broader idea of what remains after a transaction or comparison. This kind of category tests related meanings rather than dictionary-level equivalence.
The final set hides in capitalization and branding
BAY, HARMONY, INK, and TRADE appear as normal words because the grid omits the initial E and does not display company styling. The missing-letter mechanism is the clue. Looking for a shared prefix, suffix, or spelling change among leftovers is often more productive than searching for another semantic theme.
How NYT Connections works
Connections asks players to group 16 words into four sets of four that share a common thread. TechRadar’s guide to game #663 describes the objective as finding groups of four items with something in common. Try Hard Guides summarizes the concept as grouping words that share a common thread.
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Connections is available through the NYT Games experience. Because access arrangements can change, consult the current game page for the sign-in or subscription requirements that apply to your account and region.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.A practical strategy for future Connections puzzles
Begin with concrete, unambiguous matches
Look first for four words that share a specific object, activity, or phrase. Avoid committing to a category supported by only two entries. A strong group should explain all four without an unusual interpretation.
Mark possible overlaps mentally
Words can belong to several apparent themes. Before submitting, ask which candidate category uses every word most naturally and leaves a coherent set of four for the remaining grid. If one word is merely adjacent to the idea rather than part of it, treat that as a warning.
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Test the category label, not just the words
State the connection in a sentence. For this puzzle, “things related to driving” is too broad, while “car trip” precisely describes CRUISE, DRIVE, RIDE, and SPIN. A narrow label makes it easier to detect a decoy.
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After each solved group, rescan from scratch
Removing four words changes the possible relationships among the remaining 12. A word that seemed to support one category may become the obvious member of another. Do not keep defending an earlier theory after the grid has changed.
Reserve the transformation category for last
Wordplay groups involving deleted letters, prefixes, abbreviations, or altered spellings are often hardest to see while semantic options remain. Once three clean groups are identified, inspect the leftovers for a shared edit. In #663, adding the same initial E reveals the entire purple answer.
What other published guides reported
Try Hard Guides, Parade, and TechRadar each published an answer guide for this puzzle around April 3–4, 2025. Their reported memberships match: the leftover group, car-trip group, baseball-venue group, and companies-with-E-removed group all use the same 16 entries. That agreement also confirms the puzzle number and date as #663 on April 4, 2025.
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Answer recap for puzzle #663
To solve the April 4, 2025 grid, place BALANCE, DIFFERENCE, REMAINDER, and REST under what’s leftover; CRUISE, DRIVE, RIDE, and SPIN under car trip; DIAMOND, FIELD, PARK, and STADIUM under baseball venues; and BAY, HARMONY, INK, and TRADE under company names missing an initial E. The purple transformation turns the last four into eBay, eHarmony, eInk, and eTrade.
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