How to Play NYT Connections

NYT Connections is a daily word puzzle published by The New York Times. Each day you're shown 16 words and your goal is to sort them into four groups of four, where each group shares a hidden theme.

You have four attempts before the game ends. Each wrong guess costs one attempt — so getting confident before you commit matters.

The Four Color Groups

Groups are color-coded by difficulty. Yellow is always the straightforward one; purple almost always requires a creative or unexpected leap.

Start with Yellow — Always

Even if you spot the purple group, solve yellow first. Clearing the easiest category gives you fewer words to analyze and reduces the chance of wasting a guess on a decoy.

Watch for Trap Words

The NYT puzzle editors deliberately place words that seem to belong to one group but actually fit another. Common traps:

• A word with multiple meanings placed near its "obvious" group
• A proper noun that looks like a common word (e.g. CLUE could be a game, a hint, or a movie)
• Words that share a pattern with the wrong group

Think in Themes, Not Just Definitions

The purple group especially tends to be about a pattern or structure — not what the words mean, but what they do. They might all be anagrams of each other, all precede the same word, or all follow a hidden rule.

Use Process of Elimination

Once you've identified two groups confidently, the remaining eight words only need to be sorted into two groups. Elimination narrows the problem fast.

Our hint system has three levels, designed so you can stop as soon as you have enough to proceed:

• Level I — Ultra safe: A general direction for each group. No category names, no words revealed.
• Level II — Warmer: Describes what kind of thinking each group requires.
• Level III — Mild spoilers: Targeted nudges about specific trap words and the trickiest group.

The answers are hidden behind a tap-to-reveal for each category, so you stay in control of how much you see.

See Today's Hints →