Good morning, dear connectors. Welcome to today’s Connections forum, where you can give and receive puzzle — and emotional — support.

Be warned: This article includes hints and comments that may contain spoilers for today’s puzzle. Solve Connections first, or scroll at your own risk.

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If you find yourself on the wrong companion, check the number of your puzzle and go to this page to find the corresponding companion.

Post your solve grid in the comments and see how your score compares with the editor’s rating, and one another’s.

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Today’s difficulty is 4.6 out of 5.

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In Connections, each category has a different difficulty level. Yellow is the simplest, and purple is the most difficult. Click or tap each level to reveal one of the words in that category.

• Kringal
• 🌎 currently, in the North Star State

As it is the 1st of the month, here are the list of tips & tricks amassed from my own experience and those of many others in this forum over the past 1+ year. I’ve made some updates to the list, but also added info I hope will be helpful especially to beginners. These are followed by more general things to consider if you are new to playing. Lastly, I have included a short list of common abbreviations you’ll see in this forum as well as a list of links you might find useful.

I plan to post these on the first of every month to help those new to the game. If anyone has any other suggestions, corrections, etc., please let me know.

TIPS & TRICKS FOR SOLVING (in no particular order):

Part 1 of 3

*Look for anagrams

*Look for synonyms

*Look for homophones (sound same)

*Look for homonyms (spelled same)

*Break down the words into syllables and see if anything pops out

*Look for words in words, e.g., ILLEGALLY has ILL, LEG, LEGAL, GAL, and GALL in it

*Add a word or letter(s), not necessarily the same one (in front, behind, or even in the middle)

–look for a common word that starts or ends one of the words, like DRAGON could be extended to DRAGONFLY, and see if you can find others that fit that pattern

*Can you remove a letter (or 2) to make another word?

*Can you add the same sound to (or remove the same sound from) each word to make 4 words that relate, e.g., adding the sound ‘ER’ to LOAF, SLIP, SNEAK and WADE make them all types of shoes: LOAFER, SLIPPER, SNEAKER, WADER

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