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, gang! I hope you’re having a tremendous weekend so far. Just the very best one possible.
I am planning to take things as easy as I can for once. Just be a large potato (even more so than usual) while catching up on shows and whatnot. It’s that kind of day, I can feel it in my bones.
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 23, 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.
Play Puzzles & Games on Forbes
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…
- SMART
- AIRPLANE
- BACK
- GRAB
- BUTTONS
- STOP
- FLY
- FAIRY
- ENTRANCE
- BLACK
- RIVET
- MACK
- WRIST
- ABSORB
- HOSPITAL
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — draw everyone’s attention
- Green group — like a butterfly anchor or penguin
- Blue group — like maker or tower
- Purple group — clap your hands and say these a few times
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 — captivate
- Green group — things with wings
- Blue group — words that modify “watch”
- Purple group — words repeated in “Miss Mary Mack”
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 — captivate (ABSORB, ENTRANCE, GRAB, RIVET)
- Green group — things with wings (AIRPLANE, FAIRY, FLY, HOSPITAL)
- Blue group — words that modify “watch” (POCKET, SMART, STOP, WRIST)
- Purple group — words repeated in “Miss Mary Mack” (BACK, BLACK, BUTTONS, MACK)
Whew, that was a close one. I kept my streak alive, but just barely. 26 and counting. Here’s how I fared:
Okay, some initial thoughts. “Tooth” FAIRY, maybe? “MACK the Knife?” Neither of those made much sense, and I should put them back in my memory drawer for good.
I thought I had a group with BUTTONS, POCKET, FLY and RIVET as in parts of jeans but nope! Not even close to a group. The red herring got me.
SMART kept calling to me and I realized that it went with STOP, POCKET and WRIST for the blues. As it happens, I recently started wearing my Apple Watch around my ankle when I’m at my desk to better track my activity while using the mini elliptical I have there.
I then thought there might be a group of “_____ gown” words with HOSPITAL and BLACK. I thought FAIRY and somehow BACK (?!?) might go with those, but nothing doing there either.
But then. a thought: maybe things with wings? AIRPLANE, FLY, HOSPITAL and… RIVET somehow made sense together. Dude, FAIRY was right there. Sigh.
I was pretty stumped with two groups to go. MACK, BLACK, and BACK all rhyme, but nothing else went with them. I didn’t expect RIVET and BUTTONS to go together at this point, as one was a plural and the other wasn’t. But I had only one life left, so no wiggle room.
But as I was looking at ENTRANCE and GRAB next to each other, it dawned on me: ENTRANCE wasn’t referring to an entry point, but rather to the art of captivating someone. Finally, I had the yellows.
I have never heard of “Miss Mary Mack” until now, so had no idea about the purples. In case you’re wondering about that one, like me, here’s an example of the clapping game:
Tricky one 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 Monday’s game if you need them.
P.S. After all of that, you might need something soothing. This song was used to soundtrack a video I saw recently (which, annoyingly, I can no longer find) of someone making sand art in a bottle.
I know absolutely nothing about this artist, FKJ, but their song “Why Are There Boundaries” feels absolutely perfect for a relaxing Sunday:
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.
