Hints And Answers For Thursday, January 30

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

ForbesNYT ‘Connections’ Today: Hints And Answers For Wednesday, January 29By Kris Holt

Hey, everyone! I have to admit, I’m getting a little nervous now. Tomorrow is game number 600 of Connections. We haven’t had one that has gone really off the rails and infuriated many players since the pictogram-filled grid of number 550 last month.

Yes, I’d like a game that’s a little more challenging than most recent grids. But I’ve got a good streak going and I’m not ready to lose it. We don’t have long to wait until we see what’s in store for this milestone.

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 Thursday, January 30, 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…

• HALO
• RIGATONI
• AIR
• WINGS
• ROMEO
• HARP
• DIP
• DWELL
• PIZZA
• PARISH
• LINGER
• VIBE
• BERNIE
• AURA
• BEER
• INSIST

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• Yellow group — the X-factor
• Green group — Super Bowl essentials for many
• Blue group — these could cause one to say “will you please stop talking about that?!”
• Purple group — you might want to extend your vacations here

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 — intangible quality
• Green group — game day fare
• Blue group — keep going on about, with “on”
• Purple group — starting with European capitals

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 — intangible quality (AIR, AURA, HALO, VIBE)
• Green group — game day fare (BEER, DIP, PIZZA, WINGS)
• Blue group — keep going on about, with “on” (DWELL, HARP, INSIST, LINGER)
• Purple group — starting with European capitals (BERNIE, PARISH, RIGATONI, ROMEO)

I’m now at 15 straight perfect games, with an 18-game overall win streak. Here’s how I fared:

I was pretty sure ROMEO, RIGATONI and BERNIE were purple words since nothing else really made sense with them, but the connection didn’t click for me right away. I was skeptical about HALO, WINGS, HARP and AURA as a red herring of angel things, so I left those well alone. Besides, WINGS made more sense with a few other words that turned out to be the greens.

After that, what turned out to be the purples were bunched up on the left, making them easy to spot. They refer to Bern, Paris, Riga and Rome.

The yellows then popped out at me, but I sent through the blues first, just because I could. And, yes, I deduced the connection before doing so.

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 Friday’s game if you need them.

P.S. I liked this song long before I knew it was in a recurring bit on Saturday Night Live. Haddaway’s “What Is Love” is a true Eurodance classic. Try as I might, I can’t resist bobbing my head along to this one:

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.