NYT 'Connections' September 17: Clues and Answers for Game #464

A new day means a new Connections puzzle, and if you’re stuck, Newsweek is here to help.

Connections is a word game debuted by The New York Times on June 12, 2023. Since its launch, it has become the newspaper’s second most-played word puzzle behind Wordle.

Earlier this year, Connections developer and crossword editor Wyna Liu spoke with Newsweek about the game’s global following.

“The response has been really incredible and overwhelming, and unexpected,” she shared. “It’s exciting that something I care very deeply about is resonating with people.”

The answers for Tuesday’s Connections game will be revealed at the bottom of the page, so be careful not to be spoiled while scrolling if you want to figure them out yourself.

How to Play Connections

If you’ve never played Connections before, it’s easy to get the hang of. Players are given a set of 16 words in a grid format—four across and four down. These words will need to be broken up into four groups of four based on certain characteristics and put into categories. These categories range from easy to difficult, with yellow considered the least hard and purple considered the hardest. Green and blue are medium difficulty.

For example, in Monday’s puzzle, one of the categories was “Spiky things,” and the words associated with that category were “cactus,” “hedgehog,” “mace,” and “pineapple.” This was a green category.

If you get a category correct, the words associated with that category will flash in the difficulty color and disappear from the board. If you gave it your best guess but it was incorrect, the words will be gray and remain on the board.

Players are not timed but only have four guesses, so think carefully. If you’re feeling frustrated, try clicking the “Shuffle” button to jog your memory.