NYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Tuesday, December 31

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

ForbesNYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Monday, December 30By Kris Holt

Hey, folks! Happy New Year’s Eve! Or as we say where I’m from, Happy Hogmanay! Whether you’re celebrating the occasion or not, I hope you have a safe and enjoyable evening.

Before we get started, 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 Tuesday, December 31, 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…

• BALL
• DROP
• DART
• GAME
• ATTENTION
• DEAR
• BRAND
• NAMES
• THRILL
• FOR
• FLY
• BLAST
• BOLT
• KICK
• TO
• DASH

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• Yellow group — run along
• Green group — enjoy yourself
• Blue group — common sights in letters and emails
• Purple group — call them out

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 — move quickly
• Green group — fun time
• Blue group — words before an addressee
• Purple group — name ____

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 — move quickly (BOLT, DART, DASH, FLY)
• Green group — fun time (BALL, BLAST, KICK, THRILL)
• Blue group — words before an addressee (ATTENTION, DEAR, FOR, TO)
• Purple group — name ____ (BRAND, DROP, GAME, NAMES)

That’s nine wins on the trot for yours truly. Here’s how I fared:

A mild thematic grid for today with BALL and DROP as the first two words. It’s also fun to see DART GAME there given that the World Darts Championships are ongoing.

I got the yellows right away, then thought that THRILL, BALL and BLAST might be related to having a good time, but I didn’t see what could go with them.

My gaze turned toward FOR and TO, since there couldn’t bet be too many options for those to slot into. It only took me a second from there to get the blues.

I went back to my previous thought and tried including GAME with them. That didn’t work out but I realized a moment too late that KICK should go with them to get the greens.

That left the purple words. I didn’t figure out the connection here. It was pretty sneaky to have “name NAMES” as one of the pieces of connecting tissue there!

Name BRAND refers to a product made by a well-known brand or company. Name DROP means to casually mention someone famous you know or have met. “The Name GAME” is a song that riffs on people’s names using nonsense rhyming words. “Name NAMES” is typically an instruction to identify people who were involved in something nefarious.

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 Wednesday’s game if you need them.

P.S. Let’s put a pin in 2024 with an all-time classic that I might make my karaoke song if it weren’t such an overdone one. Semisonic’s “Closing Time” is such a terrific singalong song:

Have a great day! Make sure to drink enough water! 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.