If you’re reading this, chances are you’re stuck on today’s New York Times Connections puzzle. But no worries, you’re in good hands because we’ve got hints (and spoilers if you want them) to Thursday’s puzzle: #781. Don’t feel bad for taking a peek — after all, this puzzle was pretty challenging.
Don’t worry, we’re in this together so I’ll share how I did each day. Today, I was able to get away with making just one mistake and didn’t look at the hints (though I desperately wanted to). Purple, for the first time ever, is the first group I guessed correctly today.
If you’re new to NYT Connections, we’ve got some tips to help you along the way. Also, check out today’s Wordle hints and answer.
How to play NYT Connections
NYT Connections is a surprisingly difficult word game and if you play, you’re now considered a “connector.” There are 16 words presented in a four-by-four grid and your goal is to match four words into their respective color-coded groups (yellow, green, blue, purple). Yellow is the easiest to guess while purple is the hardest.
Your job is to find out how the four words are connected to a specific group. For instance, in one recent puzzle, the blue group hint was “related to buying a home” and the words were appraisal, escrow, insurance and mortgage.
If you make a mistake when you submit, that’s okay. You get four guesses before the game is over and the answers are revealed. You can also click on the lightbulb icon in the game to get some hints, but we’ll also provide those here.
If you find yourself obsessed with this game after completing just one puzzle, I’ve got bad news for you. You can only play once a day. The timer resets each night at midnight.
Tips for playing NYT Connections
I only recently started playing Connections, but here are some tips I’ve found useful along the way.
1. When you get an answer wrong, pay attention to the text that appears at the top of the puzzle. “One away” means you only got one word wrong. Analyze each word to find one that might fit better in another group and try a new word.
2. If you’re stuck, shuffle the board. You can shuffle as many times as you’d like to help you see some different word combinations.
3. Try to find the easy yellow group words first. Those words usually stick out because they have so much in common — they’re often synonyms of one another. But be wary of the trick words that could fit into multiple categories.
4. Stumped? Come back to the puzzle later with a fresher mind. Trying to solve a difficult puzzle without “sleeping” on it might result in too many mistakes.
Today’s NYT Connections hints
Today, I found purple to be the easiest, which is rare. Purple is usually the last that I’m able to guess, though when you’re left with four words, that makes it pretty easy.
I’ll give you my own hints:
Yellow group: The earliest to arrive
Green group: Next in line
Blue group: The youngest middle child of four
Purple group: At the end
Here’s one word from each group:
Yellow group hint word: Lady
Green group hint word: Coming
Blue group hint word: Eye
Purple group hint word: Resort
Okay, on to the official group names for a bigger hint. If you don’t want to know what those are, then stop scrolling.
NYT Connections group names
Here are the group names for today’s puzzle. They’re harder than they seem.
Yellow group: First
Green group: Second
Blue group: Third
Purple group: Last
Warning, spoilers ahead! If you scroll past this, the answers are right below.
Final warning! Last chance to go back and finish the game.
Today’s NYT Connections answers (spoilers)
Here are the Connections groups and the words that go with them.
Yellow group: First (aid, lady, nations, responder)
Green group: Second (coming, fiddle, guess, nature)
Blue group: Third (eye, party, rail, rock)
Purple group: Last (laugh, resort, straw, supper)
My results today
After I solved purple and yellow, I was super confused with the words I was left with. But then I finally caught on that if yellow was first and purple was last, green had to be second and blue third.
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟩🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
Thanks for reading! Share how you did today in the comments.
