Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
getty
Looking for Wednesday’s Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey folks, I hope you’re having a great week so far.
It’s interesting that Instagram is on the grid today since I’ve been thinking about the app lately. I rarely post on the app and mainly use it to keep up with friends’ stories, but I joined very early on. As in launch day. I was one of the first 250,000 or so people to sign up.
I liked how authentic it felt in the early days, but now it’s much more curated. I pretty much never edit any photos outside of cropping, partly because I never learned how to. The old square images and filters were fun gimmicks, and I liked the ethos of otherwise posting raw, spontaneous photos.
Arguably the closest thing to that these days is an app called BeReal. At a random time during the day, users receive a notification that prompts them to post photos taken simultaneously on the front and rear cameras on their phone within two minutes. You can upload photos taken after that two-minute window, though friends will be able to see when you took the snap.
There are no editing options or filters, and authenticity is the name of the game. I appreciate that approach, though I admit I’ve never actually used the app – I’d be too self-conscious! I just like the idea behind it.
Before we begin, I’ve set up a discussion group for 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 and supportive of each other. 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.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Thursday, February 27, 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…
- TISSUE
- RING
- BIGFOOT
- WHEEL
- THERMOMETER
- HORN
- PHONE
- ORGAN
- CELL
- BELT
- DIAL
- MIRROR
- CALL
- COMPOUND
- ATOM
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — please just text me instead of doing this
- Green group — essentials that help many get around
- Blue group — our building blocks
- Purple group — “smile” and “cinch” would 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 — contact via telephone
- Green group — parts of a car
- Blue group — levels of biological organization
- Purple group — ending with units of measure
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 — contact via telephone (CALL, DIAL, PHONE, RING)
- Green group — parts of a car (BELT, HORN, MIRROR, WHEEL)
- Blue group — levels of biological organization (ATOM, CELL, ORGAN, TISSUE)
- Purple group — ending with units of measure (BIGFOOT, COMPOUND, INSTAGRAM, THERMOMETER)
No perfect game today, but that’s back-to-back wins for me. Here’s how I fared:
I spotted a couple of potential groups from the jump: biology-related terms in TISSUE, CELL, ORGAN and ATOM (or COMPOUND); and phone-related terms of CELL, PHONE, RING, HORN, CALL and DIAL. Four of the latter were verbs, so I bundled those to put myself one away from a group.
Uh wait, I messed up. I included CELL instead of CALL. So that was a careless life lost. Whoops.
I wasted another guess with THERMOMETER, INSTAGRAM, MIRROR and WHEEL. Not quite sure what I was thinking there. Perhaps things linked to a phone, but that didn’t make sense as there’s no phone I know of that acts as a THERMOMETER.
But with THERMOMETER and INSTAGRAM (an obvious outlier on the grid) lit up, I spotted the link between those. I added COMPOUND and BIGFOOT to get the purples.
That eliminated one possibility for what turned out to be the blues. The green connection didn’t click for me, because I totally forgot that a BELT is a pretty important part of a car. Not my finest performance!
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 Friday’s game if you need them.
P.S. I firmly believe that any song can be improved with a brass section. It’s partly why I’ll always have a soft spot for ska and brass bands.
I can’t remember how I discovered this song, but it’s been one of my favorites for a very long time. “Is An Elegy” by Youngblood Brass Band kicks off with a memorable sousaphone intro before the rest of the band and the vocals really kick in.
I know it’s a love song, but I don’t pay much mind to the lyrics on this one. I just really enjoy the instrumentation. I hope you do too:
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.
