Today’s NYT Connections puzzle felt a bit like it was actively resisting pattern-finders. I saw a few familiar-looking words (“Tube,” “Gram,” “Book”) and briefly wondered if the theme might be something tech/social-media-adjacent. It wasn’t—thankfully—though it did make the early stages extra sneaky.
If you got stuck too, the good news is that once you nail the category “logic,” the whole board starts to snap into place.
Hints for today’s Connections groups
Yellow (easiest) hint: Not bottoms. Think “what you wear,” not “where you’re sitting.”
Green hint: You use it on your computer. Not sites, not web pages—things you install or attach.
Blue hint: Think Hamilton, or Annie Get Your Gun. In other words: show-tune building blocks.
Purple (toughest) hint: Phone would also fit here. This category has a “___ vision / ___ gram” vibe, but it’s not about apps or social platforms.
Still circling? Here’s the helpful meta-tip for Connections: when multiple items feel like they could be “tech-adjacent,” force yourself to ask what the unifying relationship is—material, function, or a proper-word pattern. Today, that second question does a lot of work.
Answers for today’s Connections groups
Yellow group — Kinds of tops: crop, halter, tank, tube
Green group — Software downloads: app, driver, extension, plugin
Blue group — Elements of a musical: book, lyrics, music, orchestration
Purple group — Tele ____: gram, kinesis, prompter, vision
Puzzle takeaway: the purple category is the kind that rewards recognizing a “word-template” rather than hunting for a theme link first. Once you see “tele ___” as the structure, the remaining pieces practically fall in line.
