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NYT Connections puzzle #364, published Sunday, June 9, 2024, asks you to sort 16 words into four groups. If you’re still solving, start with the spoiler-light hints below; the complete categories and answers follow.
Hints for Connections #364
Try these in yellow-to-purple order before revealing the groups:
- What are your emotions?
- Dotted about
- Strata
- Chips!
The 16 words in the grid
SALTY, PEPPER, BAKED, CAKE, SPRINKLE, ONION, BITTER, EARTH, SWEET, SCATTER, COUCH, UPSET, HOT, PLYWOOD, SORE, STREW.
Answers for June 9
| Color | Category | Words |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | FEELING SOME TYPE OF WAY | BITTER, SALTY, SORE, UPSET |
| Green | THROW HERE AND THERE | PEPPER, SCATTER, SPRINKLE, STREW |
| Blue | ___ POTATO | BAKED, COUCH, HOT, SWEET |
| Purple | THINGS WITH LAYERS | CAKE, EARTH, ONION, PLYWOOD |
How to solve the tricky overlaps
Don’t let taste words distract you
BITTER, SALTY, and SWEET can look like the start of a taste-based group, and HOT may seem to fit too. But the actual set separates them: BITTER and SALTY go with SORE and UPSET as feelings, while SWEET belongs with BAKED, COUCH, and HOT to make familiar phrases ending in “potato.”
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Read PEPPER as an action
PEPPER can suggest food, but here it works as a verb meaning to scatter something here and there. Pair it with SCATTER, SPRINKLE, and STREW.
Look for different kinds of connections
The groups use more than one pattern: shared meaning for the feelings, related actions for “throw here and there,” phrase completion for “___ potato,” and a broader shared property for things with layers. Connections allows words to appear to fit multiple themes, but each puzzle has one intended solution. The colors progress from yellow, the easiest category, to purple, the trickiest, according to the NYT Help Center.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Replay the puzzle
The NYT Help Center says Connections releases daily at midnight in the player’s timezone and is available on the NYT Games website and in the Games and News apps. Its archive reaches back to June 12, 2023; All Access and Games subscribers can access it, subject to current account and subscription conditions. Puzzle #364 predates that archive’s starting date, so it is within the stated archive range.
The Help Center says player statistics cover puzzles played from June 15, 2024 onward. That means its listed statistics—puzzles completed, win rate, streaks, perfect puzzles, and mistake histogram—do not provide a published statistic specific to this June 9 puzzle.
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