The end of the working week means we’re looking forward to the weekend, but we’re not taking a break from Connections.
It’s a daily word puzzle from The New York Times that has taken the world by storm since its launch in 2023.
How to Play Connections
Connections tasks players with grouping 16 words into four categories based on association. For example, Tuesday’s game linked the words charlatan, fraud, quack and sham under the category Imposter.
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 purple. However, the puzzles are rarely straightforward, using homophones and wordplay, among other techniques, to keep players challenged.
The familiarity of the words used and how often they pop up in modern life are also difficulty factors, although less-common words aren’t used only in the harder categories. “Item overlap” is the difficult moment in some games where one word can be linked to multiple categories.
If stuck, players can hit the shuffle button, which will mix up where the words appear on the screen.
Shuffling the words from the outset is recommended by the game’s editor, Wyna Liu who talked about how she creates the daily Connections games.
“Each board has to be made from scratch,” she told Newsweek in June. When she sits down to create the week’s games, she’ll consult her notebook and spreadsheet, which is like a “digital sketchpad.”
“I usually don’t know where a board is going to go. It really does a long time to fudge things and try different angles,” she said.
The answers for Friday’s Connections puzzle will be revealed at the end of this article, so scroll with caution if you want to work them out yourself.
New York Times
Connections #411 Clues for Thursday, July 26
Newsweek has some hints to help you figure out Thursday’s Connections categories.
Yellow: These are simple words to describe how to get around.
Green: What Joe Biden is saying about Kamala Harris‘ presidential run.
Blue: When you want to achieve something but you suffer a setback.
Purple: Musical tools whose names are also words outside of music.
Connections #411 Answer for Thursday, July 26
Yellow category: Basic Directions
Yellow words: Down, left, right, up
Green category: Advocate for
Green words: Endorse, back, champion, support
Blue category: Drawback
Blue words: Con, ding, Minus, strike
Purple category: Instrument homophones
Purple words: Base, liar, loot, symbol
Did you guess the answers correctly? If so, congratulations. If not, there will be another opportunity on Friday to crack the puzzle.
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.
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