NYT ‘Connections’ Hints July 1: Clues and Answer for Game #386

A wordplay game produced daily by The New York Times, Connections returns today with a new round.

The free brainteaser challenges players to categorize 16 words into four groups based on their associations. The aim of the game is simple: identify the common theme for each of the categories: yellow, green, blue, and purple.

The categories are rarely straightforward, often incorporating homophones and wordplay to keep players guessing. For example, a past green category featured anagrams, with answers like pastel, petals, pleats, and staple. Another example from the blue category was romantic letter sign-offs: always, kisses, love, yours.

Adding to the complexity, players may end up being led astray by words that seem like they could fit multiple categories. Each of the four groups must contain four unique words, with no repetitions allowed. Also, the difficulty increases with each color, starting with yellow as the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple as the hardest to solve.

The Times‘ puzzle editor Wyna Liu said that the categories’ difficulty varies with each daily edition.

“Some categories might be defined by their use of wordplay—palindromes, homophones, adding or dropping letters and words—rather than the literal meanings of the words on the cards. I identified three areas where difficulty could be adjusted: the familiarity of the words, the ambiguity of their categorization, and the variety of the wordplay,” she previously said.

The specific color for each category is revealed only once it is successfully solved. Players can shuffle the board to put the words in a different order, which could help them see patterns.

Below are some helpful tips to help players maintain their Connections winning streak—but proceed with caution if you prefer to solve the answers on your own.