Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
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Looking for Tuesday’s NYT Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey, gang! It’s Wednesday, and you know what that means: it’s time for another round of Connections!
It’s a little surprising that no one has ever asked me about the meaning of that bit, which I’ve been doing nearly every Wednesday in this column for as long as I can remember. I’m not going to give the game away now either, but if you ask me nicely, you never know – I might just tell you.
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 Wednesday, March 26, 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…
- PINOT
- CARD
- SHOT
- GLASS
- ROSE
- QUARTZ
- DRIVE
- THRUST
- CLOUD
- BOUNCE
- PLATE
- DISK
- NAPKIN
- FLEW
- GALLEON
- FORK
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — ready for dinner
- Green group — what investors generally like to have happened to numbers
- Blue group — back it up
- Purple group — turn up the volume
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 — parts of a table setting
- Green group — increased, with “up”
- Blue group — kinds of digital storage
- Purple group — units of volume plus letter
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 — parts of a table setting (FORK, GLASS, NAPKIN, PLATE)
- Green group — increased, with “up” (FLEW, ROSE, SHOT, THRUST)
- Blue group — kinds of digital storage (CARD, CLOUD, DISK, DRIVE)
- Purple group — units of volume plus letter (BOUNCE, GALLEON, PINOT, QUARTZ)
I’m up to 29 wins in a row with a perfect game. Just a few games away from matching my all-time best streak! Here’s how I fared:
I suspected when I saw PINOT and ROSE that there might be a wine-related group, but nothing else quite worked with them. Thankfully, I spotted the yellows quite quickly.
On the rearranged grid (bear in mind that I don’t hit the shuffle button unless I’m really stuck), PINOT moved above GALLEON and nothing really made sense with either of those words. So I said them aloud then looked more carefully at their construction and I realized that they were “pint” and “gallon” with a latter added to each.
Looking around the board – well, very close to those words, actually – I saw QUARTZ (quart) and BOUNCE (ounce). I was convinced those had to be the purples and I was correct!
After that, CLOUD and DRIVE caught my eye, and I was able to get the blues. That left the greens for the win. Not such a bad thing, since I didn’t quite figure out that connection before submitting the group!
I enjoyed this one, in large part because that’s a kind of purple group I don’t normally spot and either have to get by default or lose on it. Writing tech news for a living certainly stood me in good stead for the blues as well.
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 Thursday’s game if you need them.
P.S. I’m gonna bring you another somber song recommendation after the one I went with yesterday, partly because I’ve got a few on my list that I want to get to. I figure I may as well have a little run of those before getting back to the funner stuff (likely after tomorrow).
Still, I wager that many of you will know this one. I’ve loved R.E.M. my entire life. I grew up listening to that band and even saw them with my parents at a festival one time. R.E.M. are right up there with Daft Punk as a band that I wish were still together.
One of my favorite R.E.M. songs is “Nightswimming.” For many, many folks, it’s one of those tracks that evokes a certain time and place in their lives. It’s absolutely dripping with nostalgia. That piano track is wonderful and Michael Stipe’s vocals are, as always, unforgettable. What a brilliant song. I hope you enjoy 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.
