Connections is a daily word game that has become a global phenomenon, with tens of millions of users.
It celebrated its first birthday in June and in that time, 55.2 million people finished a puzzle with zero mistakes.
The game is run by The New York Times, which shared some fun facts about its players, including the fact that 9 a.m. was the most common time to play and that Connections was the most popular in the following cities and areas; New York City, Chicago, Sydney, Melbourne, Brooklyn, Seattle, Los Angeles, Toronto, Philadelphia and Minneapolis.
Instructions on how to play the game are below. Clues and the answers for Thursday’s puzzle are toward the end of the article, so scroll with caution.
New York Times
How to Play ‘Connections’
The brainteaser tasks players with grouping 16 words into four categories based on association. For example, a recent game linked the words “clear,” “earn,” “make” and “net,” which all came under the category “take home, as income.”
Each of the four categories is labeled with a color, which also signifies their difficulty level. Yellow is the easiest category, followed by green, blue and then purple. However, the puzzles are rarely straightforward, using homophones and wordplay, among other techniques, to keep things interesting.
The uniting themes can come from a broad range of categories—anything from Quentin Tarantino films to geometric terms.
If all four words are correctly placed into each set, those words will be removed from the board. Each incorrect guess counts toward the mistake tally. Up to four errors can be made before it is game over.
Players can shuffle and rearrange the board if they want to try to make the process of guessing the connections easier. To make things a bit tougher, a word can sometimes belong to more than one category—but there is only one correct answer.
‘Connections’ #403 Clues for Thursday, July 18
Yellow: You’ll find these outside as places to hang out
Green: These words are used in connection with Muhammad Ali’s sport
Blue: Words for extravagant showiness, according to Merriam-Webster
Purple: Images used to communicate instead of words
‘Connections’ #403 Answers for Thursday, July 18
Yellow Category: OPEN SPACE
Yellow Words: Court, Plaza, Square, Yard
Green Category: BOXING UNIT
Green Words: Bout, Contest, Match, Round
Blue Category: GLITZINESS
Blue Words: Dazzle, Flash, Ritz, Pomp
Purple Category: EMOJI
Purple Words: Fire, Heart, Skull, Sparkles
How many did you get right? Don’t worry if you found today’s categories difficult; you can always try again when Connections resets at midnight in your time zone.
Meanwhile, we have also put together a few hints for today’s Wordle. Or, why not give these other popular online word games a try?
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.