Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
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Looking for Saturday’s NYT Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey there! I hope you’re having a fantastic Sunday and a great weekend in general.
One thing I’m really looking forward to when the warmer weather returns is sitting out on a patio (we call it a terrasse here in Quebec) with a cold beverage, ideally with some shade from the sun.
I’m not a huge alcohol drinker these days. I’ll maybe have one or two every couple of weeks – though it’s a very different story when I’m with friends and family back home in Scotland.
There’s just something about a cold beer outside in perfect weather that just hits the right spot. Can’t wait.
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 Sunday, March 16, 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…
- MONSTER
- TAROT
- LIBRARY
- GROUP
- DRACONIAN
- CONSTELLATION
- ZODIAC
- COLLECTION
- SEVEN
- BALLET
- HYDRANT
- LEONARDO
- CLUSTER
- PSYCHO
- RAPPORT
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — they go together
- Green group — the sound peters out
- Blue group — like M or Henry
- Purple group — look elsewhere on the grid to open up some clues
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 — bunch
- Green group — ending with silent “T”
- Blue group — serial killer movies
- Purple group — starting with constellations
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 — bunch (CLUSTER, COLLECTION, CONSTELLATION, GROUP)
- Green group — ending with silent “T” (BALLET, DEBUT, RAPPORT, TAROT)
- Blue group — serial killer movies (MONSTER, PSYCHO, SEVEN, ZODIAC)
- Purple group — starting with constellations (DRACONIAN, HYDRANT, LEONARDO, LIBRARY)
Nice, I got a perfect game to end the weekend on. My streak is now at 19 wins. Here’s how I fared:
A pretty straightforward game for me today, though I’ll admit I got the purples by default.
I saw the blues right off the bat. PSYCHO, SEVEN and ZODIAC are all famed serial killer movies. Although I haven’t seen it, I vaguely recalled that Charlize Theron’s character in MONSTER was a killer as well, so I took a stab and it paid off. (It pained me not to italicize the movie titles in the clue, but that might have made things too obvious.)
With ZODIAC out of the way, the yellows then became obvious as the red herring with CONSTELLATION was neutered.
Nothing was quite adding up with the last eight words until I looked at the structure and said them out loud. That’s when the greens clicked.
I had no idea about the purple connections before submitting it. This is kind of an odd one ! We don’t often see groups like this, based around a word (or two, given ZODIAC!) that’s elsewhere in the grid. That’s usually a tell for a red herring. But today, the script has flipped. Just something else to watch out for whenever we’re playing Connections.
The constellations referenced here are Draco, Hydra, Leo and Libra.
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 Monday’s game if you need them.
P.S. Here’s another little jolt of energy for your Sunday. I really like The Hives. They’re a fantastic rock and roll band and their most recent album — 2023’s The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons — was a ton of fun.
“Smoke and Mirrors” is probably my favorite track from the record. It’s just a good ol’ stomping rock and roll song. It’s maybe not quite as immediately catchy as the likes of “Hate To Say I Told You So,” but I wager most of you haven’t heard this one:
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.
