NYT Connections puzzle #649 is the edition for Friday, March 21, 2025. Below are spoiler-light clues first, followed by the complete word list and answer groups. Stop before the answer section if you want to solve it yourself.
Hints for Connections #649
Try these clues one at a time; each points to a group without naming its four words.
- A person’s environment or surroundings.
- Notable or influential.
- Tools used to make building plans.
- A shared three-letter word that rhymes with “car.”
Words in the puzzle
The 16 words were COMPASS, ICON, SOAP, WORLD, LEGEND, EXAM, STENCIL, CHART, SCENE, RULER, MITZVAH, CIRCLE, GREAT, SPHERE, LION, and T-SQUARE.
Answers for Friday, March 21
Spoilers begin here.
Yellow — MILIEU
CIRCLE, SCENE, SPHERE, WORLD: each can describe a person’s surroundings or social setting.
#1 Best Overall
Green — LUMINARY
GREAT, ICON, LEGEND, LION: each can refer to someone notable or influential.
Blue — ARCHITECTURAL DRAWING TOOLS
COMPASS, RULER, STENCIL, T-SQUARE: tools used in architectural drawing.
Rank #2
Purple — BAR ___
CHART, EXAM, MITZVAH, SOAP: each completes a familiar phrase with “bar.”
How Connections works
Connections asks you to sort 16 words into four groups of four based on a shared link. TechRadar’s guide describes the colors as a rough difficulty progression—yellow easier, then green, blue, and purple usually hardest—but that is a general guide, not a guarantee for an individual puzzle. Players can make up to four mistakes, and elimination may help with the final category. The game is playable free on the New York Times Games site on desktop or mobile.
Why some guides appeared on March 20
This is the Friday, March 21, 2025 puzzle, #649. TechRadar notes that a new puzzle appears at midnight in each time zone, so a guide published March 20 can refer to the next day’s edition in another calendar or time zone. Parade’s March 21 guide independently confirms the puzzle number and answer groups.
Quick Recap
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