Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
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Looking for Friday’s NYT Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey there! Welcome to the weekend.
I mentioned a while back that I was considering making videos of my daily Connections solves and sharing them (some of you encouraged me to do it!). But I’ve been concerned about A.I. companies scraping my videos and using them to train their models. They absolutely already do that with my written work, but I really don’t love the idea of having my voice being easily replicated by A.I.
One possible way around that is to host the videos somewhere privately (maybe on Vimeo) and either embed or link to them in a newsletter.
So, here’s my question: would you be interested in a regular newsletter from me that includes such videos? I might use the newsletter for other things on top of that. Maybe extra recommendations, deeper discussions on TV and film (something I’m very eager to do with the new season of The Last of Us) and essays on other things that interest me… and hopefully you.
Let me know on Discord – more on that in a second – or shoot me an email. However, it might not be something that I start right away. I’ll need to I figure out logistics and how to balance my workload.
Before we begin, I’ve set up a discussion group for NYT Connections and this column on Discord. We have a great little community over there and we chat about more than NYT games. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot.
It’s also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare(!) occasions that I mess something up since I don’t look at the comments or Twitter much.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Saturday, March 15, are coming right up.
How To Play Connections
Connections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on the NYT website or Games app.
You’re presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by figuring out the links between them. The groups could be things like items you can click, names for research study participants or words preceded by a body part.
There’s only one solution for each puzzle, and you’ll need to be careful when it comes to words that might fit into more than one category. You can shuffle the words to perhaps help you see links between them.
Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is usually the most difficult one. The purple group often involves wordplay.
Select four words you think go together and press Submit. If you make a guess and you’re incorrect, you’ll lose a life. If you’re close to having a correct group, you might see a message telling you that you’re one word away from getting it right, but you’ll still need to figure out which one to swap.
If you make four mistakes, it’s game over. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen with the help of some hints, and, if you’re really struggling, today’s Connections answers. As with Wordle and other similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats.
If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the publication’s Connections archive. This includes every previous game of Connections, so you can go back and play any of those that you have missed.
Aside from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find my hints for each grid via Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query.
What Are Today’s Connections Hints?
Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.
Today’s 16 words are…
- PEG
- SUE
- MOVE
- NEEDLE
- MAY
- BARB
- NECK
- TONIGHT
- BRIDGE
- MIGHT
- WISH
- STRING
- BRISTLE
- SERVE
- SPINE
- CHARGE
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — ouch, these hurt!
- Green group — found on a viola or guitar
- Blue group — often heard on The Good Wife or Law and Order
- Purple group — shooting stars might break the mold if you say this when you see one
What Are Today’s Connections Groups?
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.
Today’s Connections groups are…
- Yellow group — sharp protrusion
- Green group — features of stringed instruments
- Blue group — litigation verbs
- Purple group — in “Star Light, Star Bright”
What Are Today’s Connections Answers?
Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.
This is your final warning!
Today’s Connections answers are…
- Yellow group — sharp protrusion (BARB, BRISTLE, NEEDLE, SPINE)
- Green group — features of stringed instruments (BRIDGE, NECK, PEG, STRING)
- Blue group — litigation verbs (CHARGE, MOVE, SERVE, SUE)
- Purple group — in “Star Light, Star Bright” (MAY, MIGHT, TONIGHT, WISH)
Not quite a perfect game, but it should have been. My streak is now at 18 wins. Here’s how I fared:
I enjoyed the “Peggy Sue” reference with PEG and SUE on the top line. My first thought was that TONIGHT might reference The Tonight Show or songs that have double words in their titles, as in “Tonight Tonight” by The Smashing Pumpkins.
Still, the yellows caught my eye first. or at least they kind of did since I mistakenly included PEG instead of SPINE on my first guess.
SPINE being out of the equation meant it was less likely in my mind that NECK and WISH were references to types of bones. So then it clicked that NECK, STRING, PEG and BRIDGE were all parts of a guitar (well, stringed instruments).
I should play my guitar more often. It’s about three feet from my desk at all times.
The game then fortunately placed the purples on one line and the blues on another. There was just something about seeing MAY, MIGHT, WISH and TONIGHT on a row together that made them made sense, even though I didn’t inherently understand the connection. “Star Light, Star Bright” must have been buried in my subconscious.
That left the blues. I did figure out the connection before submitting those.
That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Sunday’s game if you need them.
P.S. Since I mentioned this as part of my thought process, I’m gonna have to go with it for today’s recommendation. “Tonight Tonight” is such a beautiful song. It’s sublimely constructed with expert musicianship in every nook and cranny. It fills my heart every time I hear it. The Georges Méliès-inspired video is absolutely stunning too.
A friend of mine can’t stand The Smashing Pumpkins but only because of Billy Corgan’s voice. That’s fair — I can’t get into Pearl Jam for a similar reason (don’t @ me). I don’t mind Corgan’s voice nearly as much and he has created some astounding music.
“Tonight Tonight” isn’t quite my favorite Pumpkins song, but it’s right up there:
The YouTube comments on the video have me welling up so I’m calling it a day there.
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Call someone you love!
If you’re so inclined, please follow my blog for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Sharing this column with other people who play Connections would be appreciated too Also, follow me on Bluesky! It’s fun there.
