Hints And Answers For Saturday, February 1

Looking for Friday’s Connections hints and answers instead? You can find them here:

ForbesNYT ‘Connections’ Today: Hints And Answers For Friday, January 31By Kris Holt

Hey, everyone! Welcome to the weekend!

I’m glad that January is behind us. Partly because I almost never spell “January” correctly on the first attempt (I genuinely got it wrong both times in this paragraph). I definitely spell February correctly every time though. Absolutely. Just like I do with Microsfot.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to be more intentional about using my phone in a healthier way. For instance, I have 15-minute daily time limits on both the Instagram and YouTube apps, and rarely stray beyond those.

I also have a feature enabled that detects when my phone is too close to my face to minimize eye strain. So I need to hold it at arm’s length to use it. I’m short-sighted and don’t have my glasses on when I’m falling asleep or just waking up. This setting deters me from using my phone at the very beginning and end of my day since I can’t see the screen very well. It might be helpful for you too!

Before we begin, I’ve set up a discussion group for Connections and this column on Discord. You can chat about each game (and other topics) with me and other folks. I’m always interested to find out how other people approach the game, so join us! It’s fun.

It’s also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare(!) occasions that I mess something up.

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Saturday, February 1, are coming right up.

How To Play Connections

Connections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on the NYT website or Games app.

You’re presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by figuring out the links between them. The groups could be things like items you can click, names for research study participants or words preceded by a body part.

There’s only one solution for each puzzle, and you’ll need to be careful when it comes to words that might fit into more than one category. You can shuffle the words to perhaps help you see links between them.

Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is usually the most difficult one. The purple group often involves wordplay.

Select four words you think go together and press Submit. If you make a guess and you’re incorrect, you’ll lose a life. If you’re close to having a correct group, you might see a message telling you that you’re one word away from getting it right, but you’ll still need to figure out which one to swap.

If you make four mistakes, it’s game over. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen with the help of some hints, and, if you’re really struggling, today’s Connections answers. As with Wordle and other similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats.

If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the publication’s Connections archive. This includes every previous game of Connections, so you can go back and play any of those that you have missed.

Aside from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find my hints for each grid via Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query.

What Are Today’s Connections Hints?

Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.

Today’s 16 words are…

• MATCH
• SHADE
• CHALLENGE
• CLUE
• CONTEST
• SUSPECT
• CHORD
• TONE
• DEAL
• HUE
• DETECTIVE
• QUESTION
• POSE
• ALIBI
• DISPUTE
• TINGE

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• Yellow group — paint swatches have several of these
• Green group — elements of a typical Agatha Christie novel
• Blue group — hey now! About that…
• Purple group — in some cases, this involves pressing one object against another and moving it quickly

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Need some extra help?

Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.

Today’s Connections groups are…

• Yellow group — tint
• Green group — components of a mystery
• Blue group — take issue with
• Purple group — strike a ____

What Are Today’s 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 final warning!

Today’s Connections answers are…

• Yellow group — tint (HUE, SHADE, TINGE, TONE)
• Green group — components of a mystery (ALIBI, CLUE, DETECTIVE, SUSPECT)
• Blue group — take issue with (CHALLENGE, CONTEST, DISPUTE, QUESTION)
• Purple group — strike a ____ (CHORD, DEAL, MATCH, POSE)

A perfect game brings my overall streak up to 19 wins. Here’s how I fared:

As I was double checking the list of words after writing them out, I realized that CONTEST might have more to do with challenging something, rather than having something to do with a competition. That led me into the blues.

The greens were no problem at all, thanks to ALIBI and DETECTIVE and the yellows were a cinch as well. That left the purples for the win. I didn’t bother figuring out the connection there because it’s the weekend and my brain has been overworked, friends (I probably should have gotten it, though).

Another relatively straightforward game there. I’ve got a niggling feeling that the NYT is going to wait until, like, a random Tuesday before tossing out the next truly wild game. But for now, let’s all keep our streaks rolling along smoothly.

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Sunday’s game if you need them.

P.S. I’ll do a couple more dance/house song recommendations today and tomorrow before getting back to my regularly scheduled programming.

My favorite flavor of house music, by far, is French house. There must be something in l’eau that makes musicians in that country so damn good at it. Kavinsky skews a little more toward the synthwave side of things (another genre I really enjoy). Still, his stuff is pretty great.

My favorite song of his is probably “ProtoVision.” The vibe is so painfully ’80s, but it absolutely hits the spot:

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Call someone you love!

If you’re so inclined, please do follow my blog for more coverage of Connections and other word games and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Also, follow me on Bluesky! It’s fun there.