Today's Connections Hints & Answers For January 16, 2025 (Puzzle #585)

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If you are hoping to finish today’s Connections puzzle quickly, you will want to embark on a quest to find some hints sooner rather than later. This puzzle was not overly difficult, but as usual, there are tricky spots no matter the ease of the puzzle. With the right hints about what is going on in the puzzle, you can navigate any tricky spots and overcome the difficulties without growing frustrated. It is often nerve-wracking when you are on the last guess and have more than one category to go, but these hints can help you avoid that.

If you want to play a more complex and involved game, The Password Game puzzle will have you create a new password that is unbreakable. This will be done by giving you 15 different mini-puzzles that you will have to solve and put together, adhering to each one at the same time, until you have a series of letters, numbers, and characters that no one will be able to untangle.

Today's Connections Category Hints

JANUARY 16 #585

Mall in Connections Categories January 16

This puzzle has a lot of different words, and some of them don’t have similar meanings but are connected in different ways. That always makes it a little harder to guess what words belong in the different categories. However, a little bit of context goes a long way, and that is exactly what these clues are going to give you. Sometimes all it takes is the right nudge, which is what these clues are meant to do:

  • One category is about what happens on a very infamous street in America
  • One category is about different things that are all put in the same place
  • One category is about people who all share a similar role
  • One category is about four words that come before the same word in a phrase - that word is a type of small creature
NYT game StrandsNYT game Strands logo image with characters jumping in the air around it

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Strands is one of New York Times' many puzzle games that consists of a unique 6x8 word search that requires players to use zig-zag solutions.

If you still need more to go on, the category names are sure to give you a bigger nudge toward the end of the puzzle. If you want to skip that and go for the answers straight away, you can keep scrolling.

A yellow Connections game bar

BUYING AND SELLING

A green Connections game bar

INSTALLED ON A WALL

A blue Connections game bar

SPY

A purple Connections game bar

___RAT

Today's Connections Answers

JANUARY 16 #585

Mall in Connections Answers January 16

Yellow Answers: Revealed & Explained

A yellow Connections game bar

BUYING AND SELLING

BUSINESS

COMMERCE

MARKET

TRADE

This category felt the most obvious today, as all of these are fairly common and used to describe exactly what the category says nearly every day. They also all mean close to the same thing, making it easier to guess that they go together. Sometimes I get a little too zeroed in on a different category, so I don’t see the obvious one, which is one of the ways you might get tripped up on a category like this. It is nice when the easy category does actually feel easy because that also isn’t always the case, so it is pleasant when it does happen.

Green Answers: Revealed & Explained

A green Connections game bar

INSTALLED ON A WALL

BASEBOARD

OUTLET

SCONCE

SWITCH

This one could be more difficult, as you may not be sure what these all have in common. If it was just things found in a house, RUG or PLANT might belong here just as well. Three of them involve electricity, but BASEBOARD does not, so it is not a guarantee that you would get it based on that either. To me, this feels a little harder than the next category, as it usually does when the words don’t have a similar meaning but are connected by another means. I suppose it depends on how easy it is for you to recognize that these are in the same place.

NYT game Spelling Bee from mobile app for newspaper

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Blue Answers: Revealed & Explained

A blue Connections game bar

SPY

AGENT

ASSET

MOLE

PLANT

This one feels a little easier, as these words all mean very similar things. While MOLE and PLANT could be tricky, as that is not their primary definition, I think spies and spy movies are popular enough that most people would be somewhat familiar with those words in this context. While that may not be the case, it is possible and it feels a little easier. I also don’t believe there are many other things that could be mistaken for being in this category.

Purple Answers: Revealed & Explained

A purple Connections game bar

This one is hard, as MOLE could belong here and that could throw you off. Depending on the order you solve each category, you might not know that “spy” is an option, and it would be weird to not put MOLE here if you recognized that there were different types of rats in here. Figuring it out might be hard, and it did take me a moment to separate them out as I did recognize this one early. It’s the one disadvantage of figuring out the hardest category earlier than the game intends.

Other Games Like Connections

If you feel the desire to keep on gaming, you should check out the following puzzles in the box below.

Game Name

How To Play

Is It Free To Play?

Wordle (NYT)

Solve a random five-letter word by using color clues. Every Wordle answer can be found in our daily updated list.

Yes

Hello Wordl

Very similar to Wordle, where players change the number of letters in the word.

Yes

The Password Game

Create a password in this ever-changing, not-so-simple game. You can find some helpful tips in our Password Game guide.

Yes

Worldle

Name a country based only on its silhouette, and a few geographical hints.

Yes

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Released June 12, 2023

Developer(s) The New York Times Company

Publisher(s) The New York Times Company

ESRB e

Platform(s) Web Browser , Mobile
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