Connections always has a way of feeling personal, and today’s puzzle leaned hard into that “I recognize this!” energy. Four tidy categories, one literary vibe, and even a wordplay twist that starts with an “under the sea” hint. If you breezed through the early groups but got stuck when the theme got weirder, you’re in the right place.
Hints
We’ll walk through the groups in order of difficulty—starting with the easiest.
Yellow group (things babies do): Think of the classic newborn behaviors—sounds, feeding, teething, and the general chaos of tiny humans trying to exist.
Green group (modify deceptively): Look for verbs that can mean “to change,” but with a sneaky, disguised vibe—like the kind of alteration you might not notice at first.
Blue group (Judy Blume books): This one is a clear literary breadcrumb trail. If you grew up in the same fandom orbit, the title set should feel familiar fast.
Purple group (fish minus a letter): The oddball category is built from fish names—then you subtract a letter to land on new, related words. The “minus a letter” mechanic is the whole key here.
If you’re solving along and want scoring feedback once you’re done, the Times Games interface for Connections can quantify your run—an easy way to see how close you were to a perfect finish.
And if you’re pairing this with other daily word puzzles, you might also enjoy the kind of puzzle solving help the Times provides across categories, especially when you’re hunting patterns rather than isolated facts.
Answers
Yellow: babble, cry, nurse, teethe
Green: alter, cook, doctor, fudge
Blue: Blubber, Deenie, Forever, Superfudge
Purple: founder (flounder), salon (salmon), surgeon (sturgeon), trot (trout)
One fun tip for puzzles like this: when a category explicitly points to a mechanism (“minus a letter”), solve it like a math problem. Don’t just try to recognize the final words—work backward from the fish names. That approach usually snaps the purple group into place quickly.
Also, the blue group is the kind of set that feels like a time capsule. If you got that one early, it’s probably because your brain already stored those titles as “instant labels,” not as spelling challenges—today’s puzzle rewarded that kind of familiarity.
