Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
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Looking for Thursday’s Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey there, gang! Happy Friday! And Happy Valentine’s Day to all those celebrating.
I’ll be honest: I think it’s a crummy holiday. Not because I’m a grouch. I just believe that you should show your loved ones that you care every day of the year, not primarily on one that sits neatly in the sweet spot between Christmas and Easter. Hmm, I wonder why that’s when St. Valentine’s Day takes place.
Good luck finding a spot at a nice restaurant around February 14, especially if you don’t care about the holiday. I’ll be taking to my partner to one next month for our 18-month anniversary instead. And I’ll be sure to treat her with some gifts in the meantime.
Before we begin, I’ve set up a discussion group for Connections and this column on Discord. You can chat about each game (and other topics) with me and other folks. I’m always interested to find out how other people approach the game, so join us! It’s fun.
It’s also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare(!) occasions that I mess something up.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Friday, February 14, 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…
- SURPRISE
- HUMOR
- SEE
- STRAIGHT
- BABY
- RATTLE
- BOO
- CREAK
- HISS
- BAE
- GOTCHA
- PAMPER
- SHED
- GUESS WHO
- INDULGE
- SLITHER
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — be overprotective
- Green group — animal antics
- Blue group — didn’t expect that, did you?
- Purple group — “mote” and “glazier” might fit in here
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 — mollycoddle
- Green group — things a rattlesnake does
- Blue group — words said to an unsuspecting person
- Purple group — homophones of bodies of water
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 — mollycoddle (BABY, HUMOR, INDULGE, PAMPER)
- Green group — things a rattlesnake does (HISS, RATTLE, SHED, SLITHER)
- Blue group — words said to an unsuspecting person (BOO, GOTCHA, GUESS WHO, SURPRISE)
- Purple group — homophones of bodies of water (BAE, CREAK, SEE, STRAIGHT)
Three perfect games in a row, and I now have a streak of eight wins. Here’s how I fared:
I was a little surprised there wasn’t a more overt love theme given that it’s Valentine’s Day. I did suspect for a moment that BABY, BOO and BAE could be terms of endearment, but I didn’t see a fourth word that would match. The same went for RATTLE, HISS and SLITHER as snake-related things.
However, I figured out that BOO had to go with SURPRISE, GOTCHA and GUESS WHO. Fittingly enough, I was surprised that those were the blues. The yellows were next after I realized HUMOR made sense with the other three words.
At that point, I was convinced BAE had to have some kind of wordplay going on, making it one of the purples. As I said all of the remaining words out loud, the soundalikes became clear. They relate to bay, creek, sea and strait.
And of course, a snake can shed its skin. So that left the greens for a threepeat of perfect games.
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 Saturday’s game if you need them.
P.S. It’s Friday and I’ve had several rough nights’ sleep over the last couple of weeks, so let’s roll into the weekend with a fitting song that happens to be an all-time great house track. “Insomnia” by Faithless blends melancholia and euphoria to remarkable effect. That beat drop is superior:
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Call someone you love!
If you’re so inclined, please do follow my blog for more coverage of Connections and other word games and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Also, follow me on Bluesky! It’s fun there.
