NYT Connections gives you 16 words and asks you to sort them into four groups of four, each linked by a shared idea. The hard part is that several words may appear to fit more than one group: you need to find the puzzle’s intended complete solution, not just a connection that sounds plausible.
How to play Connections
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Read all 16 words on the board before submitting a group. Look for possible links such as a literal category or words that complete the same phrase.
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Select four words that share a connection and submit them as one group.
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Continue grouping the remaining words until the board is solved or you run out of available guesses. The New York Times Help Center describes each puzzle as having exactly one intended solution.
The official examples illustrate the range of connections: four kinds of fish form a straightforward category, while words that come before FIRE make a phrase-completion group. Connections may rely on meanings, associations, or how words work as parts of larger phrases.
What the four colors mean
Each solved group is assigned one of four colors. The NYT identifies yellow as the easiest group and purple as the trickiest, so the colors communicate relative difficulty. They do not, according to the published rules, designate fixed kinds of connection: yellow is not guaranteed to be a synonym group, and purple is not guaranteed to involve wordplay.
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How many mistakes can you make?
The Help Center’s statistics description tracks puzzles completed “in under 4 mistakes,” records perfect solves with zero mistakes, and displays results from zero through four mistakes. It also notes that a puzzle can end when no guesses remain. Incorrect submissions therefore use up the available mistake allowance, but the accessible official rules text does not spell out the exact end-of-game instruction in a direct how-to-play rule. Check the live game’s instructions for the current interface behavior rather than relying on a more precise limit stated elsewhere.
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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallA 2024 study of the game’s daily offerings describes Connections as allowing four attempts; that is a research-paper description, not a substitute for the live game’s current instructions. The study covered daily puzzles from the game’s June 12, 2023 debut through June 3, 2024 (Todd, Merino, Earle, and Togelius, 2024).
Why plausible groups can be wrong
Overlap is part of the challenge. The NYT says words may seem to fit more than one category even though the intended solution is unique. A word might belong to a familiar literal category and also work in a phrase pattern, so four individually defensible choices do not necessarily make one of the puzzle’s intended groups.
That design calls for lateral thinking as well as vocabulary. A 2024 paper describes difficult connections that can depend on less common word senses or on words used as parts of larger phrases (“Missed Connections: Lateral Thinking Puzzles for Large Language Models”).
A practical way to test a candidate group
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Write down alternate meanings and possible phrase completions for the ambiguous words.
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Check whether the other 12 words can still form three coherent groups if your proposed set is correct.
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Wait to submit a set if one of its four words only fits by a strained interpretation. A connection can sound reasonable without matching the puzzle’s intended partition.
How the NYT curates the words
The New York Times Help Center says editors curate the words and categories using Oxford Dictionary. That describes an editorial reference used in creating the puzzle; it does not mean every group is a dictionary-synonym category.
Where to play and related versions
The Help Center says Connections is free to play on all platforms without registering or signing in; signing in is recommended if you want progress retained across devices. It lists the Games app, NYTimes.com Games, NYTimes.com/The Athletic, and the News app as places to play. The daily puzzle releases at midnight in the player’s timezone. Availability and feature details can change; see the NYT Connections Help Center page for current information.
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