Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
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Looking for Monday’s NYT Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey, there! I hope your week is off to a great start.
One of the main reasons I like Connections so much is that it’s an enjoyable way to put my general knowledge to the test. I dig quiz shows for a similar reason. Maybe I should try to go to trivia nights more often as well.
I’ve always been a bit of a jack of all trades when it comes to knowing about a wide variety of topics without having a deep understanding of most of them. Of course, there are a few areas where I’m stronger (such as pop culture and current affairs) and others where I’m weaker (royal history, religious texts).
Even without Connections or the existence of quizzes, I’d probably be the same way. Being a person who writes news stories on the internet, it’s literally my job to learn things, understand them, put them in context and lay out why they’re interesting. I’ve been afforded a grand canvas to share my thoughts and opinions with a huge number of people as well, something that I don’t take lightly.
It’s an amazing gig that I’ve worked hard for and am fortunate to have, especially in an industry that’s been in turmoil for many years. But without my natural curiosity, I wouldn’t have made it this far.
My point is that, instead of being detached, it’s fun to be excited and interested in what’s going on in the world (and beyond). It can be deeply rewarding, as long as you’re careful and don’t go down the internet’s many harmful rabbit holes.
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 Tuesday, March 18, 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…
- KINDER
- DICE
- SINGULAR
- DIE
- OXEN
- SPECIAL
- DEER
- LICE
- UNIQUE
- SHEEP
- SQUID
- ANGST
- MICE
- WURST
- REMARKABLE
- SHRIMP
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — supreme, the one and only
- Green group — like Seltzer or Uber
- Blue group — one is the same as many
- Purple group — not the same at all when there are at least two
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 — exceptional
- Green group — German words
- Blue group — plural animals identical to their singular forms
- Purple group — plural words that are very different from their singular forms
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 — exceptional (REMARKABLE, SINGULAR, SPECIAL, UNIQUE)
- Green group — German words (ANGST, DIE, KINDER, WURST)
- Blue group — plural animals identical to their singular forms (DEER, SHEEP, SHRIMP, SQUID)
- Purple group — plural words that are very different from their singular forms (DICE, LICE, MICE, OXEN)
No perfect game this time, but my overall streak is up to 21 wins. Here’s how I fared:
Hmmm… a very interesting collection of words today. I first took a stab at OXEN, DEER, SHEEP and MICE as in a group of four-legged animals. But, of course, that was all too easy so I wasn’t even one away from a group.
I felt like I’d wasted a guess since the yellows immediately became clear after that.
Then I was stumped again. I tried OXEN, DEER (as in venison), WURST and SHRIMP as in types of things that might be cooked on a barbeque. Nothing doing there.
It took a while of gazing at the grid before my eyes were drawn back to ANGST. It made me think of a Rammstein song of the same name that I enjoy. And my eye was drawn back to KINDER, which I initially thought might be a reference to Kinder Surprise. So I managed to get the greens.
With only eight words remaining, I finally deduced the blue words. I realized that they were all words that could be either a singular or plural.
That left the purples, which I submitted for the win. I sort of understood the connection before submitting it and I can see why the puzzle was constructed in this way. But I have to admit I’m not a fan of this one.
Having two groups so tightly linked together can make the game especially tough. If you can’t figure out one, it seems unlikely that you’ll get the other. Plus (and maybe this is just me), the purples seem a bit more nebulous than usual. I might be wrong about this, but I suspect that today’s edition will be a streak-breaker for many.
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 Wednesday’s game if you need them.
P.S. I’ve recommended “Angst” by Rammstein in the column before, so I won’t do that again. Instead, I’ll go with the song that got me into the band in the first place, “Sonne.”
Around the time that Mutter, the album that “Sonne” is on, came out, there was a promotion in the U.K. that allowed participants to snag all kinds of music-related freebies if they collected enough Coca-Cola ringpulls.
My family roped in a bunch of other people to help me accumulate as many as possible. I ended up getting a bunch of free CDs (if I recall correctly, you could get any album that was in print for 100 ringpulls), including Mutter. I also got a didgeridoo through the promotion that I never learned how to play, but thought looked cool in my bedroom.
Anyway, here’s “Sonne,” an industrial metal track sung in German that was originally written as an entrance song for the boxer Vitali Klitschko. It’s certainly not for everyone, but I love it:
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.
