If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Saturday, January 13, 2024, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solutions to all four categories. Along the way, I’ll explain the meanings of the trickier words and we’ll learn how everything fits together. Beware, there are spoilers below for January 13, NYT Connections #216! Read on if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Connections game.
If you want an easy way to come back to our Connections hints every day, bookmark this page. You can also find our past hints there as well, in case you want to know what you missed in a previous puzzle.
Below, I’ll give you some oblique hints at today’s Connections answers. And farther down the page, I’ll reveal the themes and the answers. Scroll slowly and take just the hints you need!
As you may have guessed, there are a lot of football-themed words. If you know football pretty well, you might be able to tell what four of those words have in common, and which are the red herrings. The rest of us might want to leave this group for last.
Here are some spoiler-free hints for the groupings in today’s Connections:
Yellow category - Ways of getting in.
Green category - Be the boss.
Blue category - People on the gridiron.
Purple category - Delay tactics.
Nothing too tricky, just a lot of ambiguous words. Remember to ask yourself whether a verb might also be able to serve as a noun, and vice versa.
Ready to hear the answers? Keep scrolling if you want a little more help.
We’re about to give away some of the answers. Scroll slowly if you don’t want the whole thing spoiled. (The full solution is a bit further down.)
Today’s puzzle is full of football words, so the trick is figuring out which ones can mean something else. I’ll give you one freebie: A tight END is a position in football.
To PUNT is a way to relinquish possession of a football, or you can metaphorically PUNT a decision to the next meeting.
You can PASS a football, too, but you can also have a boarding PASS to get on an airplane, or a guest PASS to go with your friend to the pool where they are a member.
You can RUN down a football field, RUN for office, or RUN a business.
Yellow: CREDENTIALS FOR ENTRY
Green: PRESIDE OVER
Blue: AMERICAN FOOTBALL POSITIONS
Purple: POSTPONE
Ready to learn the answers to today’s Connections puzzle? I give them all away below.
The yellow grouping is considered to be the most straightforward. The theme for today’s yellow group is CREDENTIALS FOR ENTRY and the words are: BADGE, INVITE, PASS, TICKET.
The green grouping is supposed to be the second-easiest. The theme for today’s green category is PRESIDE OVER and the words are: CHAIR, DIRECT, LEAD, RUN.
The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is AMERICAN FOOTBALL POSITIONS and the words are: CENTER, END, SAFETY, TACKLE.
The purple grouping is considered to be the hardest. The theme for today’s purple category is POSTPONE and the words are: HOLD, PUNT, STALL, TABLE.
Matching PASS with BADGE got me the first grouping, 🟨 and then I took an early stab at the football words by selecting the ones that can be positions, not actions. 🟦
RUN with CHAIR (as in CHAIRing a committee) got me the next grouping, 🟩 and finally I was left with a group of ways to STALL on making a decision. 🟪
Connections Puzzle #216 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪
I have a full guide to playing Connections, but here’s a refresher on the rules:
First, find the Connections game either on the New York Times website or in their Crossword app. You’ll see a game board with 16 tiles, each with one word or phrase. Your job is to select a group of four tiles that have something in common. Often they are all the same type of thing (for example: RAIN, SLEET, HAIL, and SNOW are all types of wet weather) but sometimes there is wordplay involved (for example, BUCKET, GUEST, TOP TEN, and WISH are all types of lists: bucket list, guest list, and so on).
Select four items and hit the Submit button. If you guessed correctly, the category and color will be revealed. (Yellow is easiest, followed by green, then blue, then purple.) If your guess was incorrect, you’ll get a chance to try again.
You win when you’ve correctly identified all four groups. But if you make four mistakes before you finish, the game ends and the answers are revealed.
The most important thing to know to win Connections is that the groupings are designed to be tricky. Expect to see overlapping groups. For example, one puzzle seemed to include six breakfast foods: BACON, EGG, PANCAKE, OMELET, WAFFLE, and CEREAL. But BACON turned out to be part of a group of painters along with CLOSE, MUNCH, and WHISTLER, and EGG was in a group of things that come by the dozen (along with JUROR, ROSE, and MONTH). So don’t hit “submit” until you’ve confirmed that your group of four contains only those four things.
If you’re stuck, another strategy is to look at the words that seem to have no connection to the others. If all that comes to mind when you see WHISTLER is the painting nicknamed “Whistler’s Mother,” you might be on to something. When I solved that one, I ended up googling whether there was a painter named Close, because Close didn’t fit any of the obvious themes, either.
Another way to win when you’re stuck is, obviously, to read a few helpful hints–which is why we share these pointers every day. Check back tomorrow for the next puzzle!
