Start with the spoiler-free hints. Go deeper only when you need to. Reveal answers on your own terms.
A direction for each group — no names given.
What kind of thinking each group asks for.
Pointed nudges on the words built to fool you.
Every Connections board plants a few decoys. Here are today’s, and why they pull you the wrong way.
It's a well-known food, leading solvers toward a nonexistent food group and masking its role as an old-school exclamation.
Strongly associated with the internet company, distracting solvers who might search for a tech or brand category.
Primarily a piece of furniture, tempting a grouping with other household objects like BELT or PIN.
Frequently refers to a fast train or delivery service, not an obvious verb for communication.
These old-fashioned interjections—HOT DOG, WHOOPEE, HURRAH, and YAHOO—all express joy or triumph. The trick is recognizing them as exclamations rather than taking their literal meanings, especially with modern distractions like the food or company.
COUCH, EXPRESS, FRAME, and PHRASE can all be used as verbs meaning to articulate or put into words. The challenge lies in knowing these secondary definitions, which are overshadowed by more common noun uses.
Words like CUTIE (QT) and EASY (EZ) sound exactly like common two-letter abbreviations. The category's cleverness lies in noticing the phonetic link to texting shorthand, transforming everyday speech into letter codes.
BELT, GOGGLES, PIN, and RAZOR all combine with the word SAFETY to form protective items. The puzzle relies on solving the fill-in-the-blank pattern, but the standalone nouns can mislead into other plausible groupings.
This puzzle disguises ordinary words by highlighting their secondary meanings. The exclamations clash with modern brands, and CONVEY’s verbs hide in plain sight as nouns. The Blue group’s phonetic abbreviations offer a clever wordplay twist, while SAFETY ___ is a classic fill-in-the-blank. Red herrings like HOT DOG and COUCH tempt false food or furniture groups, rewarding solvers who think beyond the obvious.
a textbook decoy
requires lateral thinking
Solving the easiest group first reshapes how you read the entire board.
The editors reuse certain misdirection patterns. Learning to spot them saves guesses.
Purple is never what it first appears to be. Six structural patterns explain most of them.
Film titles, band names, and celebrity surnames hide in plain sight.
