Today's NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Dec. 17, #555

5 days ago 3

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

The New York Times Connections puzzle usually starts with a pretty easy category, the yellow category. I found today's yellow category kind of tough. I know all the words and they do have the same meaning, but for some reason I had trouble putting them together. Did you struggle at all today? Read on for today's Connections hints and answers.

There's also news in the Connections world. The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one it's had for some time for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. And players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

How to play Connections

Playing is easy. Winning is hard. Look at the 16 words and mentally assign them to related groups of four. Click on the four words you think go together. The groups are coded by color, though you don't know what goes where until you see the answers. The yellow group is the easiest, then green, then blue, and purple is the toughest. Look at the words carefully and think about related terms. Sometimes the connection has to do with just a part of the word. Once, four words were grouped because each started with the name of a rock band, including "Rushmore" and "Journeyman."

Hints for today's Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today's Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest, yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: You've got guts.

Green group hint: Street.

Blue group hint: Wrapping is one kind.

Purple group hint: Venus and Serena play here.