Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
getty
Looking for Wednesday’s NYT Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:
ForbesNYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Wednesday, March 26By Kris HoltEdit: Apologies, the hints and answers didn’t initially line up with Thursday’s game. Not sure what happened there. But thanks to someone flagging the issue for me in the Discord, I was able to straighten everything out quickly, and the correct word list, hints and answers are below. Sorry again!
Hey, gang! I hope you’re having a great week so far.
There’s something from a truly memorable early episode (the third season, in case you’re interested) of the Netflix series Chef’s Table that has stuck with me for, jeez, eight years at this point.
The episode focuses on Jeong Kwan, a Zen Buddhist nun who cooks vegan meals for her community and visitors, with much of the flavor in her food stemming from fermentation. It’s when she talked about the importance of soy sauce that she said something that really struck a chord with me.
“Soy sauce makes me exited just thinking about it,” the chef said. “Every food is recreated by soy sauce. Soy beans, salt and water, in harmony, through time.”
I found those last four words deeply profound. Yes, certain aspects of life and the world around us decay over time, but others become more robust. Not just flavors, but ideas, wisdom, community, resolve, knowledge, relationships. Although almost everything is temporary, the notion that some elements harmonize and strengthen over time is an immensely beautiful one.
Before we begin, I’ve set up a discussion group for NYT Connections and this column on Discord. We have a great little community over there and we chat about more than NYT games. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot.
It’s also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare(!) occasions that I mess something up since I don’t look at the comments or Twitter much.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Thursday, March 27, 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 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…
- PHONE
- SWAY
- SCRATCH
- WAVE
- RIGHT
- CHIP
- PAPER
- DING
- CORRECT
- SCOPE
- TOUCH
- GREEN
- MOVE
- BINGO
- CHANGE
- REACH
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — pull the heartstrings
- Green group — what you’d want to hear on a game show or at trivia
- Blue group — like bones or cheddar
- Purple group — “manager” and “organism” would fit in here
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 — affect
- Green group — you got it!
- Blue group — slang for money
- Purple group — objects with the prefix “micro-“
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 — affect (MOVE, REACH, SWAY, TOUCH)
- Green group — you got it! (BINGO, CORRECT, DING, RIGHT)
- Blue group — slang for money (CHANGE, GREEN, PAPER, SCRATCH)
- Purple group — objects with the prefix “micro-” (CHIP, PHONE, SCOPE, WAVE)
No perfect game today, but I’m up to 30 straight wins. Here’s how I fared:
🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟦 🟨🟨🟦🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
CHIP, DING and SCRATCH seemed to form a group at first, but I didn’t see what could go with them, so those were likely a red herring. I realized that DING was part of the greens, but only after wondering if it might go with WAVE as a bunch of microwave-related terms.
I thought CHANGE, SWAY, MOVE and TOUCH might go together as a group of words meaning to emotionally affect someone. However, I was one away from a group. I swapped TOUCH out for REACH and was again one away. Rats!
I zoomed out from those for a minute. As I looked at WAVE again, I realized I wasn’t far away at all with my “microwave” notion, as I spotted the purples.
GREEN and PAPER got me the blues, leaving the yellows for victory.
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 Friday’s game if you need them.
P.S. Let’s wrap up this little run of more melancholy songs with one last one today, because there’s other fun stuff I’m hoping to get to soon. (I’m overflowing with recommendation ideas at the minute, so maybe having a newsletter to offer some extra ones could actually work!)
I hate clowns. Can’t stand ’em. Their cheerful makeup belies an intent that’s mischievous at best, murderous at its worst. I have endured too many horror movies with clowns for my own good.
But there’s something about a sad clown I quite like. There’s something more genuine about it, as it’s arguably more difficult for such a creature to mask its intentions. Sad clowns make me happy, as does this wonderful ode to one by the magnificent Joe Purdy:
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Call someone you love!
If you’re so inclined, please follow my blog for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Sharing this column with other people who play Connections would be appreciated too Also, follow me on Bluesky! It’s fun there.
