Looking for Friday’s Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey folks! Welcome to the weekend.
This is one of my favorite weekends of the year on the sports front as it’s when all of the big teams enter the FA Cup, the top knockout football (not soccer) tournament in England and Wales. The draw is unseeded, so there are always wild matchups. For instance, Liverpool will host Accrington Stanley, a team that is (I believe) some 86 places below the Premier League leaders in the league system.
The FA Cup always has some major upsets, as lower-league teams facing more prestigious opponents often have little to lose and want to make a name for themselves. I can’t wait to watch as much of the action as possible.
Before we get going, I’ve started a discussion group for Connections and this column on Discord. You can chat about each game (and other topics) with me and other folks. I’m always interested to find out how other people approach the game, so join us! It’s fun.
It’s also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare(!) occasions that I mess something up.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Saturday, January 11, are coming right up.
How To Play Connections
Connections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on the NYT website or Games app.
You’re presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by figuring out the links between them. The groups could be things like items you can click, names for research study participants or words preceded by a body part.
There’s only one solution for each puzzle, and you’ll need to be careful when it comes to words that might fit into more than one category. You can shuffle the words to perhaps help you see links between them.
Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is usually the most difficult one. The purple group often involves wordplay.
Select four words you think go together and press Submit. If you make a guess and you’re incorrect, you’ll lose a life. If you’re close to having a correct group, you might see a message telling you that you’re one word away from getting it right, but you’ll still need to figure out which one to swap.
If you make four mistakes, it’s game over. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen with the help of some hints, and, if you’re really struggling, today’s Connections answers. As with Wordle and other similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats.
If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the publication’s Connections archive. This includes every previous game of Connections, so you can go back and play any of those that you have missed.
Aside from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find my hints for each grid via Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query.
What Are Today’s Connections Hints?
Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.
Today’s 16 words are…
- CONVERSE
- SUPREME
- FOOD
- NETWORK
- SURFING
- KANGAROO
- TABLE
- TENNIS
- MATRIX
- BREAKING
- TRAMPOLINE
- GRID
- CIRCULATE
- TAEKWONDO
- ARRAY
- MINGLE
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — useful ways to arrange data
- Green group — socialize professionally
- Blue group — Paris, Sydney and Tokyo sights
- Purple group — nests for legal eagles, perhaps
What Are Today’s Connections Groups?
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.
Today’s Connections groups are…
- Yellow group — display of rows and columns
- Green group — things to do at a work event
- Blue group — Olympic events since 2000
- Purple group — ___ court
What Are Today’s Connections Answers?
Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.
This is your final warning!
Today’s Connections answers are…
- Yellow group — display of rows and columns (DEPEND, HINGE, RELY, REST)
- Green group — things to do at a work event (CIRCULATE, CONVERSE, MINGLE, NETWORK)
- Blue group — Olympic events since 2000 (BREAKING, SURFING, TAEKWONDO, TRAMPOLINE)
- Purple group — ___ court (FOOD, KANGAROO, SUPREME, TENNIS)
No perfect game today, but it feels like one that got away. My overall streak is up to seven. Here’s how I fared:
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟨🟨🟨
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
The existing pairings of CONVERSE and SUPREME (clothing brands), FOOD and NETWORK (a cable channel) and TABLE and TENNIS seemed like red herrings to me.
Anyway, I was able to get the blues first. BREAKING was one of the answers at trivia the other night, so that was fresh in my mind. Also, fun fact about me, I was a junior Scottish TAEKWONDO champion and reached red belt. I should get back to that someday.
I then thought that CONVERSE, CIRCULATE and MINGLE would go together, but I didn’t clock the fourth word. NETWORK was a possibility but I figured that would go with GRID, MATRIX and ARRAY. That suspicion was unfounded as I was one away from a group. That meant TABLE had to go with the other three for the yellows, while NETWORK was part of the greens.
However, me being me, I had to submit what I thought were the purples first. I didn’t figure out the connection, but I probably should have! There aren’t too many meanings for KANGAROO, after all (a KANGAROO court is one that generally disregards the norms of law and justice).
That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Sunday’s game if you need them.
P.S. Since we had BREAKING in the grid, I thought I might include a video of Raygun’s infamous performance at the Paris Olympics, but it feels mean to do so. We don’t punch down here.
Instead, since it’s the weekend, let’s get the party going with a classic from one of the best ever to do it, Kool and the Gang. “Get Down On It” was the first one that popped up in my YouTube search results, so let’s go with that classic (as odd as the video is):
Have a great day! Make sure to drink enough water! Call someone you love!
If you’re so inclined, please do follow my blog for more coverage of Connections and other word games and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Also, follow me on Bluesky! It’s fun there.