Note: Make sure to complete today’s NYT Connections before reading further! We’ll be getting into spoilers for today’s game pretty quickly. If you need some help to complete the grid, you can find my NYT Connections hints and answers column for today via my author page.
Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to my deeper dive into today’s NYT Connections answers. The idea behind this is to help clear things up for anyone who isn’t sure how today’s groups fit together.
I’m going to assume that a) you know how to play NYT Connections and b) you’ve already beaten today’s game. If I’ve missed any red herrings or misunderstood something, let me know via email or on Discord. I don’t typically look at X or check the comments here.
We’re going straight into spoiler territory here. So, consider this your one and only warning.
Here are today’s NYT Connections answers explained (and any red herrings I spot) for Tuesday, December 9:
Today’s NYT Connections Answers Explained
Connections – Yellow Group
Play Puzzles & Games on Forbes
🟨 bear in mind (CONSIDER, COUNT, FACTOR, INCLUDE)
These are all words meaning to think about something specific while assessing a situation. Not a whole lot of ambiguity here.
Connections – Green Group
🟩striped animals (CLOWNFISH, HONEYBEE, TIGER, ZEBRA)
Straightforward here too. These are animals with stripes!
Connections – Blue Group
🟦 associated with rainbows (DOROTHY GALE, LEPRECHAUN, PRIDE, UNICORN)
Okay, here is where we need to start breaking things down.
DOROTHY GALE is the main character in The Wizard of Oz. In the film, she sings a song called “Over the Rainbow,” in which she dreams of a better life in a faraway land:
According to Irish folklore, a LEPRECHAUN is a small, bearded man who is said to have hidden a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
A rainbow flag is a symbol of LBGTQIA+ PRIDE. It’s a common sight at LBGTQIA+ rights events, such as PRIDE parades.
As for the UNICORN – which is Scotland’s national animal, by the way – that has long been associated with rainbows. The expression “rainbows and unicorns” refers to innocent and carefree happiness, but it’s often used sarcastically or ironically.
Connections – Purple Group
🟪 beginning with number homophones (FIEVEL, FOREHEAD, TOUCAN, WONDER)
We can jam through this group pretty quickly. They refer to
- FIEVEL > five, based on “fiev”
- FOREHEAD > four, based on “fore”
- TOUCAN > two, based on “tou”
- WONDER > one, based on “won”
Connections – Red Herrings
As I noted in the main column, the red herring I spotted today was cereal mascots:
- COUNT > Count Chocula
- HONEYBEE > Honey Nut Cheerios
- LEPRECHAUN > Lucky Charms
- TIGER > Tony the Tiger from Frosted Flakes/Frosties
If you’d like to chat about today’s game of NYT Connections with a group of exceptionally cool and lovely people and also me, you can do just that in our Discord community. We’d love to have you join us.
I’ll be back with another set of NYT Connections hints and answers tomorrow, as well as another edition of this one, all going well. You’ll be able to find both of those on my Forbes author page when the time comes (following me there helps me out too!). As for the weekend editions of my NYT Connections hints and answers column, I’m currently doing that via my newsletter, Pastimes.
