Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
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Looking for Monday’s Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:
Happy Tuesday, gang! I hope your week is off to a killer start.
The lineup for the one of the main music festivals around these parts was recently revealed and I’m kinda jazzed about it. I haven’t seen The Killers in forever and they’re the Friday headliners. Lucy Dacus, Doechii and Finneas play on the same day, so I’ll definitely be there for that.
There isn’t much for me on the Saturday even though I like Gracie Abrams. And while TV On The Radio are playing that day too, it’s not quite enough for me. The Sunday looks good though, mainly because of The Beaches and headliner Olivia Rodrigo. I think Rodrigo is terrific, but I opted not to see her (with Chappell Roan opening!!!) last year because I was a little anxious about the optics of a 30-something dude going to that show solo.
But yes, I’m looking forward to that festival and the other gigs that I have coming up over the next month and change. Live music is the best.
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. 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 Tuesday, February 25, 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…
- BRICK
- MORTAR
- PICKLE
- SHOEBOX
- MUCHO
- GUSTO
- MULTI
- MICROWAVE
- RELISH
- BEAUCOUP
- LIME
- ZEST
- JENNY
- PASSION
- MOLTO
- FISH TANK
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — throw yourself into it
- Green group — roughly the quantity of languages a polyglot knows
- Blue group — I’m sure you can find the right angle if you don’t get blocked
- Purple group — it doesn’t take much to change these
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 — enthusiasm
- Green group — “many” in different languages
- Blue group — rectangular prisms
- Purple group — rhyme with U.S. coins
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 — enthusiasm (GUSTO, PASSION, RELISH, ZEST)
- Green group — “many” in different languages (BEAUCOUP, MOLTO, MUCHO, MULTI)
- Blue group — rectangular prisms (BRICK, FISH TANK, MICROWAVE, SHOEBOX)
- Purple group — rhyme with U.S. coins (JENNY, LIME, MORTAR, PICKLE)
Oh no, two losses in a row! Here’s how I fared:
I struggled from the jump here. I was on the right track with an opening salvo of MUCHO, GUSTO, BEAUCOUP and MOLTO, which put me one away from the greens. But I decided not to tempt fate and looked elsewhere. I got caught by a trap of food-related things with PICKLE, LIME, ZEST and PASSION – I should have known there wouldn’t a group quite as simple as that and those don’t quite fit together anyway.
Still, I realized what the greens were, followed by the yellows.
I was completely stumped after those, though. I was getting a little frustrated by this one, so I made two random guesses to lose a second straight game.
I should have deduced the blues, which were much simpler than I’d anticipated. They’re just rectangular cuboids! They have a similar shape! That’s all there was to it.
I did not have my rhyming hat on today, so I wouldn’t have figured out the purples. They reference penny (JENNY), nickel (PICKLE), dime (LIME) and quarter (MORTAR).
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. On Valentine’s Day, Sabrina Carpenter released a deluxe edition of her album Short n’ Sweet. It has a few extra songs, including a new, country-laced version of “Please Please Please” featuring the legendary Dolly Parton.
I love the original version and this one’s fantastic too. There was no way on earth that Carpenter was going to get Parton to sing a word that sounds like “mother trucker,” however:
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.
