NYT Connections hints and answers for Tuesday, March 18 (game #646)
Looking for a different day?
A new NYT Connections puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Monday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Connections hints and answers for Monday, March 17 (game #645).
Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.
What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc's Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.
BLUE: PLURAL ANIMALS IDENTICAL TO THEIR SINGULAR FORMS DEER, SHEEP, SHRIMP, SQUID
PURPLE: PLURAL WORDS THAT ARE VERY DIFFERENT FROM THEIR SINGULAR
FORMS DICE, LICE, MICE, OXEN
My rating: Hard
My score: 2 mistakes
Maddening is the only way to describe today’s Connections.
I roared through the yellow and green groups, at first thinking “this couldn’t be as straightforward as just being GERMAN WORDS could it”? EXCEPTIONAL was equally unchallenging. But then I hit the wall.
Before I finally realized the connections were plurals, I initially thought it must be something unique to the animals, so I put SHRIMP, SQUID, LICE and MICE together, thinking they all had flexible bodies or something. Yes, fair enough, I was reaching.
Then, when I realized it was about linguistics, I still didn’t fully get it and included LICE instead of DEER.
As infuriating as this was (I’d argue OXEN is not that different to Ox) I admire how SINGULAR and DIE (the singular of DICE) were also in the puzzle.
How did you do today? Let me know in the comments below.
Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Monday, 17 March, game #645)
BLUE: KINDS OF TRUCKS DUMP, GARBAGE, MONSTER, PICKUP
PURPLE: BANDS MINUS THE NUMBER FIVE BEN FOLDS, JACKSON, MAROON, MC
What is NYT Connections?
NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.
On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.
It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.
It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.