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.
'Hero' might seem like a category about comic book characters or bravery, but here it's a regional term for a long sandwich.
'Roll' might appear to belong with food (like bread rolls) or motion, but it's part of the 'jelly ___' group.
'Grounds' could be misinterpreted as a place (like grounds of a house) or as in coffee grounds, but in this puzzle it's a synonym for a reason or basis.
The four yellow words are all regional slang terms for a submarine sandwich: grinder, hero, hoagie, and sub. This group is straightforward once you think of deli counters.
These green words — argument, basis, cause, grounds — all mean a reason or justification for something, like an excuse or a foundational argument. A clean synoym set.
The blue group covers common photo editing tools on a smartphone: adjust, crop, filters, and markup. They require recognizing the digital context rather than literal meanings.
The purple group is a puzzle within the puzzle: each word pairs with 'jelly' to form a common compound: jelly bean, jelly belly, jelly donut, jelly roll. The connection is purely lexical and not semantic — you need to spot the missing first word.
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.
