NYT Connections hints and answers for Friday, March 6 (game #999)

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got a daily Strands hints and answers article if you need help for that too, while my Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Connections today (game #999) - today's words

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• SPONGE
• MARBLE
• SHARP
• WIT
• POUND
• LAYER
• FACULTY
• CURTAIN
• HASH
• PARASITE
• BLANKET
• SENSE
• LEECH
• CLOAK
• NUMBER
• MOOCH

NYT Connections today (game #999) - hint #1 - group hints

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: Take without giving
• GREEN: Keep it hidden 
• BLUE: Meanings for a particular symbol 
• PURPLE: Brainpower, but missing an element

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #999) - hint #2 - group answers

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: FREELOADER
• GREEN: CONCEALING COVER
• BLUE: WAYS ONE MIGHT REFER TO #
• PURPLE: WORDS FOR LUCIDITY, IN THE SINGULAR

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Connections today (game #999) - the answers

The answers to today's Connections, game #999, are…

• YELLOW: FREELOADER LEECH, MOOCH, PARASITE, SPONGE
• GREEN: CONCEALING COVER BLANKET, CLOAK, CURTAIN, LAYER
• BLUE: WAYS ONE MIGHT REFER TO # HASH, NUMBER, POUND, SHARP
• PURPLE: WORDS FOR LUCIDITY, IN THE SINGULAR FACULTY, MARBLE, SENSE, WIT

• My rating: Hard
• My score: 1 mistake

What do SPONGE, LAYER, POUND and MARBLE suggest to you? Cakes, of course — which is exactly what the NYT wanted you to think by placing them all together in the top-left-hand corner of the board today. What did I do? Ignored them, of course, because there was no way I was falling into that trap.

Instead, I decided that SPONGE might go nicely together with LEECH, PARASITE and MOOCH to make a FREELOADER group — and indeed they did. That was yellow done, and the green CONCEALING COVER was not much harder.

As always, blue and purple required a little more thought. I spotted that FACULTY, SENSE and WIT were all connected with smart thinking, but tried both SHARP and NUMBER and got 'one away'; I'm not really sure what I was doing with the latter, but only smart people understand numbers, right?

I only had three words to choose from now: MARBLE, HASH and POUND, and after staring at them for a few minutes it slowly dawned on me that the other words were all singulars, and that MARBLE would therefore be the final piece of the puzzle. Not a great example of my own mental faculties, to be honest.

Incidentally, I can't help but feel that the blue # group was more difficult still than purple. I'm very glad I didn't need to solve that one.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Thursday, March 5, game #998)

• YELLOW: BITS OF HARDWARE BOLT, NUT, SCREW, WASHER
• GREEN: PLACES WHERE IDEAS ARE DEVELOPED INCUBATOR, LAB, SANDBOX, TEST BED
• BLUE: GO BACK AND FORTH ALTERNATE, SEESAW, SWITCH, TOGGLE
• PURPLE: WHAT "SUB" MIGHT REFER TO BELOW, HERO, REPLACEMENT, SUBMARINE

What is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.

On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.

It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.

It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.