Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
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Each day’s game of NYT Connections goes live at midnight local time. Before your NYT Connections hints today, here’s what you missed on Thursday:
Hey there, Connectors! The weekend is right around the corner, but before we get there, let’s make sure all of our Connections streaks remain intact.
I passed up the chance to see Paul McCartney when he was in town this week. I’ve never been a huge fan of his or The Beatles, but I slightly regret not snapping up reasonably priced (at least on a comparative level) tickets I saw for a suite. Tickets were generally pretty expensive otherwise, and I have a lot of other things coming up.
One of those is what will be, as things stand, my final show of the year. I’m going to see Papa Roach for the very first time. I’m not a diehard fan or anything, but I liked them when I was a kid and the support acts are pretty fun. I think it could be a good gig, and one that costs about a sixth as much for a decent seat as a McCartney gig.
Still, McCartney’s show might just offer good value for money. His current setlist runs for about two and a half hours and he’s been playing a separate 12-song set during soundchecks for VIPs. That’s pretty impressive stuff for any musician, let alone someone of his age and standing.
Before we start, I want to mention the great community we have on Discord, where we chat about Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. It’s a lovely, welcoming group of folks. I like to call it our cozy little corner of the internet. You’re more than welcome to join us. Don’t be shy!
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Friday, November 21 are coming right up. Let’s get rolling!
NYT Connections – How To Play
Connections is a free New York Times daily word game that you can play on the NYT’s website or Games app. If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the Connections archive, which includes every previous game.
Connections presents you with a grid of 16 words (sometimes phrases, symbols or numbers). The aim is to arrange them into four groups of four. You don’t know how they hit together or what the category for each group is: that’s what you have to figure out.
There’s only one correct solution and there are often red herrings. You can guess incorrectly three times. A fourth wrong guess, and it’s game over.
Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to deduce, followed by blue, green and purple. Often, the yellow and green groups have synonyms, the blues have cultural references and the purples have some kind of wordplay involved. But this is not a hard and fast rule. Be ready for curveballs – part of the fun of Connections is in how the NYT shakes things up to keep you on your toes.
As with Wordle and similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends using an emoji-based grid. The game tracks your progress too.
Many players take pride in having long win streaks or getting a reverse rainbow – correctly guessing the purple, blue, green and yellow groups in that order with no mistakes. That adds an extra little challenge.
NYT Connections Hints – Today’s Word List
Scroll slowly! I’ll first give you a list of today’s words, then a hint for each category. After that, I’ll reveal one word that goes into each group. Then I’ll tell you the category names, followed by the full answers.
Today’s 16 words are…
- RACECAR
- LAPEL PIN
- SCREWDRIVER
- WOLF EEL
- BOLT CUTTER
- GREYHOUND
- SCARF RING
- GRUMPY OLD MAN
- COSMOPOLITAN
- LAVALIER
- CLOWNFISH
- AWARENESS RIBBON
- TALKING DOLL
- CHOW MEIN
- BOUTONNIÈRE
- SEA BREEZE
NYT Connections Hints
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- 🟨 Yellow group — these can be decorative or useful things to have on the fold
- 🟩 Green group — some are shaken, others are stirred
- 🟦 Blue group — like ant, rat and emotion
- 🟪 Purple group — before anything else, take a moment to digest the grid
NYT Connections Hints – One Answer Per Group
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.
Let’s take a look at one answer for each group.
Here we go…
- 🟨 Yellow group — AWARENESS RIBBON
- 🟩 Green group — GREYHOUND
- 🟦 Blue group — RACECAR
- 🟪 Purple group — BOLT CUTTER
NYT Connections Hints – Groups/Categories
Today’s Connections groups are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — things worn on lapels
- 🟩 Green group — cocktails
- 🟦 Blue group — Pixar protagonists
- 🟪 Purple group — starting with synonyms for “eat”
NYT 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 last chance to look away.
This is your final warning!
Today’s Connections answers are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — things worn on lapels (AWARENESS RIBBON, BOUTONNIÈRE, LAPEL PIN, LAVALIER)
- 🟩 Green group — cocktails (COSMOPOLITAN, GREYHOUND, SCREWDRIVER, SEA BREEZE)
- 🟦 Blue group — Pixar protagonists (CLOWNFISH, GRUMPY OLD MAN, RACECAR, TALKING DOLL)
- 🟪 Purple group — starting with synonyms for “eat” (BOLT CUTTER, CHOW MEIN, SCARF RING, WOLF EEL)
My immediate thought was that there’d be a group of palindromes because, as we all know, “RACECAR is RACECAR backwards.” But I didn’t see anything else that quite worked. The cocktails, however, were a (sea) breeze for the greens.
From there, CLOWNFISH jumped out at me. Of course, that’s the protagonist of Finding Nemo, the Pixar movie. It didn’t take long to find three other Pixar protagonists and I had the blues wrapped up. (I know it’s a Disney film and not a Pixar one, but did you see the trailer for the live-action Moana movie this week? How utterly pointless. It looks pretty much the same as the animated version!)
At that point, CHOW MEIN and WOLF EEL caught my eye. They didn’t really fit with anything else, so I figured they had to be wordplay purples. SCARF RING also starts with a word that means to eat quickly. Bolt, from BOLT CUTTER, was the only other one that indicated rapidity, even though I’ve never really heard of that specifically in terms of eating. Nevertheless, I had the purples.
That left me with the yellows. I was aware of what an AWARENESS RIBBON and a LAPEL PIN were, but BOUTONNIÈRE and LAVALIER were beyond me. I really do need to take French classes, huh?
Aside from the ignominy of getting the yellows by default, I’m pleased as punch to have a winning streak that currently sits at 265. How did you get on today?
Here’s my grid:
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨
Want to know more about how everything fits together? Let’s explore today’s game in more depth in my NYT Connections Answers Explained column. You can check that out by visiting my author page.
That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. I’ll be back with you here on Monday for more Connections shenanigans. In the meantime, you can read the weekend editions of this column over at my newsletter, Pastimes. (That is, if I can stop celebrating Scotland’s qualification for the World Cup long enough to write them.)
P.S. There’s only one way to end this themed run of puppet/Muppet-related song recommendations I’ve been doing this week. With The Muppet Show theme, of course. It’s an all-timer of a theme song:
And because I have a giant soft spot for OK Go, here’s their interpretation too:
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!
Please follow my blog for more NYT Connections hints and help with 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. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my newsletter, Pastimes.
