Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
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Looking for Sunday’s NYT Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey there! Happy Monday. And happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone celebrating! I might pop around to the closest Irish pub for a cheeky Guinness after I’m done with work for the day.
Let’s continue our new tradition of having an upbeat song to start the week. I had something else in mind before I realized what day it was, so I’ll save that for next time. Instead, I’m gonna go with one of my favorite Irish pop songs. So here is “C’est La Vie” by B*Witched. Every U.K. ‘90s kid knows this one, but even if you don’t, I have a feeling it’ll get you moving anyway:
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 Monday, March 17, 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 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…
- PICKUP
- GARBAGE
- ABANDON
- FIBER
- MAROON
- FREEDOM
- MC
- STRAND
- THREAD
- MONSTER
- SPONTANEITY
- JACKSON
- BEN FOLDS
- STRING
- UNRESTRAINT
- DUMB
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — like the NYT game that’s a word search
- Green group — no reservations
- Blue group — watch out when these back up
- Purple group — missing a part that’s not always an accurate descriptor of these things
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 — filament
- Green group — uninhibitedness
- Blue group — kinds of trucks
- Purple group — bands minus the number five
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 — filament (FIBER, STRAND, STRING, THREAD)
- Green group — uninhibitedness (ABANDON, FREEDOM, SPONTANEITY, UNRESTRAINT)
- Blue group — kinds of trucks (DUMP, GARBAGE, MONSTER, PICKUP)
- Purple group — bands minus the number five (BEN FOLDS, JACKSON, MAROON, MC)
My second straight perfect game brings my streak up to 20 wins. Here’s how I fared:
No problem at all for me with this board. Pretty interesting to see MONSTER on the grid for a second day running. Fun to see BEN FOLDS there too — that guy’s great.
The yellows were super straightforward. No problem at all there. MAROON then caught my eye, along with JACKSON. That made the purples stand out.
As for the hint, Ben Folds Five were a three-piece band. Maroon 5 originally had four members and now there are six (and what the heck, they’ve been going since 1994???).
With the smaller grid, the green then became pretty clear. ABANDON gave me a little pause until I remembered the expression “reckless abandon.” That left the blues for the win.
There was one real red herring of note here. ABANDON and DUMP could have gone with MAROON. But it didn’t catch me out today!
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 Tuesday’s game if you need them.
P.S. As I mentioned, I really enjoy what I’ve heard of BEN FOLDS the Ben Folds Five. My favorite song of theirs is probably the semi-autobiographical “Army.”
It’s a rapid zip through a big chunk of the protagonist’s life and it’s catchy as heck. There’s a brass section that I love and when Folds plays it live, he often gets the crowd to sing the horn parts. It’s always a lot of fun to listen to those versions of this song:
Here’s a live version (which has swears, so it’s not totally safe for work):
That’s some fantastic audience participation.
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.
