As Sunday approaches, it’s time for another round of Connections, the popular puzzle game from The New York Times.
Since its debut in June 2023, Connections has quickly gained a large following, challenging players to group words based on hidden connections like homophones, synonyms, and clever wordplay. With its mix of logic and language skills, Connections has become the second-most popular game on the platform, right behind Wordle.
In this guide, we’ll explain how to play Connections, offer strategies to sharpen your puzzle-solving skills, and provide hints to help with Sunday’s challenge.
Just a heads-up—the answers for Sunday’s puzzle are included later in the article, so proceed carefully if you want to avoid spoilers.
How to Play Connections
Connections challenges players to categorize 16 words into four groups based on their associations.
Each group is color-coded to reflect its difficulty: Yellow for the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. The puzzles are rarely straightforward, often featuring homophones, wordplay, and other techniques to keep players challenged. If players get stuck, they can use the shuffle button to rearrange the words on the screen.
The New York Times
Wyna Liu, a crossword editor at The New York Times who developed Connections, recently shared her tips for playing the game with Newsweek.
“My best piece of advice is to wait as long as you can before guessing,” Liu said.
“You may see the board and have completely identified the category, seeing five words that could belong in that category,” she continued. “Don’t try to guess the four words in that category because, even though you know what the fifth member is, you won’t know which of the four it might not be.” This would ultimately waste a turn.
“Don’t do what I do, which is ‘rage solve,'” Liu added.
Connections #483 Clues for Sunday, October 6
Newsweek has some hints to help you figure out today’s Connections categories.
Yellow: Heading for the exit.
Green: These words are associated with a tasty dairy treat.
Blue: You may see these words when you start work in the morning.
Purple: These words are associated with our furry friends.
Connections #483 Answers for Sunday, October 6
Yellow category: Turn tail
Yellow words: Flee, leave, retreat, withdraw
Green category: Type of cheese
Green words: Cottage, cream, goat, string
Blue category: Pages on a website
Blue words: About, contact, home, login
Purple category: Things cats do
Purple words: Knead, purr, scratch, shed
Did you guess the answers correctly? If so, congratulations. If not, there will be another opportunity to crack the puzzle on Monday.