Hints
Today’s Connections felt like one of those puzzles that starts friendly and then quietly turns into a word-hunt. The trick is to stay alert for word families that can point to a category even before you see the full set.
Here are four spoiler-y hints, in the order they’ll likely click for most solvers: from easiest to the trickiest.
Yellow (easiest): Think “things that carry,” especially in the literal sense—conduits for fluids, signals, or similar materials.
Green: A classic mark of a con artist: actions meant to dupe people out of something.
Blue: A set of verbs you’d use when making Earl Grey—steps in how tea gets from leaves to cup.
Purple (toughest): “School” shows up again and again as a modifier. The category is about what kinds of words naturally pair with “school.”
Answers
Ready to match them to your grid? Here are today’s full Connections answers by color.
Yellow — conduit: duct, line, main, pipe
Green — swindle: fleece, hose, squeeze, stiff
Blue — tea-making verbs: boil, pour, steep, strain
Purple — “school” modifiers: grade, grammar, high, primary
One quick solving tip: when a category is a “modifier” type (like the purple group), it often helps to try the most obvious pairing first—then see what new word suddenly becomes the only thing that fits. That mindset usually turns a stubborn late-game cluster into the final clean sweep. If you’re still working through the day’s Today’s NYT puzzle solving help, these same pattern-recognition habits transfer surprisingly well.
And if you’re using the Times Games bot for scoring, it’s a good way to spot where you’re getting tangled—especially in categories like “swindle,” where multiple verbs feel equally plausible until you see the exact set. For more spoilers and hint-style clues on how the categories work, paying attention to that “only-possible” pairing moment is usually the breakthrough.
