NYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Monday, January 27

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

ForbesNYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Sunday, January 26By Kris Holt

Hey, everyone! Welcome to the start of a new week.

I took in my first concert of the year over the weekend (not counting a mediocre Linkin Park tribute band in early January). I had never seen Sum 41 live before and since this is their farewell tour, it was going to be my only chance.

The show was terrific, even if I didn’t know as many Sum 41 songs as I thought. Full of energy, great connection with the crowd and fun music.

I went in thinking I would film a short clip of the guitar solo from “In Too Deep,” which is one of my favorite solos of all time. But during the show, as I looked around and saw many people filming snippets to post on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, I realized just how fed up I am of living life through my phone. I kept it in my pocket and enjoyed the moment. I can always watch bits of the show again on someone else’s YouTube channel if I’m so inclined.

Before we get going, I’ve started 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 Monday, January 27, 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…

• OLIVE
• TYPEWRITER
• EXTRA
• SAMPLE
• BARK
• BITE
• AXE
• SCALES
• TWINS
• OIL
• SHELL
• VIRGIN
• TASTE
• HEDGE MAZE
• SKIN
• MOUTHFUL

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• Yellow group — a nibble
• Green group — keeping flora and fauna safe
• Blue group — a Rachael Ray fave
• Purple group — “tricycle” and “elevator” would fit in 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 — small amount of food to try
• Green group — protective coverings in nature
• Blue group — “extra virgin olive oil”
• Purple group — seen in The Shining

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 — small amount of food to try (BITE, MOUTHFUL, SAMPLE, TASTE)
• Green group — protective coverings in nature (BARK, SCALES, SHELL, SKIN)
• Blue group — “extra virgin olive oil” (EXTRA, VIRGIN, OLIVE, OIL)
• Purple group — seen in The Shining (AXE, HEDGE MAZE, TWINS, TYPEWRITER)

This is getting ridiculous now. I’m up to a dozen straight perfect games and a 15-game win streak. Here’s how I fared:

I had a few immediate thoughts about potential red herrings. Putting BARK and BITE next to each other probably ruled those out as a duo. For a moment, I figured the presence of OIL meant that OLIVE and VIRGIN likely wouldn’t match up. But wait… we have EXTRA on the grid too. I do love me some EVOO, and thus I had the blues. (I put the words in the proper order in my answers, not alphabetically.)

The straightforward yellows were up next. The grid then handily bunched together what I thought were the greens on the right side of the remaining grid. That meant the purples were on the left and, of course, I was able to figure out that connection. “Redrum,” indeed. That left the greens for yet another perfect game to kick off this week.

A couple more stray thoughts: I did suspect briefly that AXE would have more to do with the deodorant, given the spelling. I also wondered for a second if HEDGE MAZE and OLIVE would go together as part a group of green stuff, but nope!

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 Tuesday’s game if you need them.

P.S. I recommended The Shining just a couple of weeks ago, so I won’t do that again.

Instead, let’s get back to some music. My song recommendations have skewed very much in the direction of rock. That’s where my tastes typically lie, but I love all kinds of music! Not so much country or very hardcore EDM, but all kinds!

To that end, I think it’s time to shake things up. I’ll try to only recommend dance/house songs this week, unless I can’t resist popping in something that’s relevant to a particular game. So, here’s “It Feels So Good” by Sonique, an anthem from (gosh) the year 2000:

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.