If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Tuesday, September 10, 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 September 10, NYT Connections #457! 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!
Hints for the themes in today’s Connections puzzle
Here are some spoiler-free hints for the groupings in today’s Connections:
- Yellow category – Words referring to the diversity of things.
- Green category – Relay race words.
- Blue category – How to evaluate a movie or a homework assignment, for example.
- Purple category – These all have a word in common relating to a head of state.
BEWARE: Spoilers follow for today’s Connections puzzle!
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.)
A heads up about the tricky parts
STARS and STRIPES do not go together.
HAND and THUMBS do not go together.
To place NHL (short for National Hockey League) you should think about the teams that are a part of it.
SORTS is a noun.
What are the categories in today’s Connections?
- Yellow: VARIETIES
- Green: TRANSFER
- Blue: RATINGS SYSTEMS
- Purple: THINGS WITH KINGS
DOUBLE BEWARE: THE SOLUTION IS BELOW
Ready to learn the answers to today’s Connections puzzle? I give them all away below.
What are the yellow words in today’s Connections?
The yellow grouping is considered to be the most straightforward. The theme for today’s yellow group is VARIETIES and the words are: KINDS, SORTS, STRIPES, TYPES.
What are the green words in today’s Connections?
The green grouping is supposed to be the second-easiest. The theme for today’s green category is TRANSFER and the words are: DELIVER, GIVE, HAND, PASS.
What are the blue words in today’s Connections?
The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is RATINGS SYSTEMS and the words are: A-F, PERCENTAGE, STARS, THUMBS.
What are the purple words in today’s Connections?
The purple grouping is considered to be the hardest. The theme for today’s purple category is THINGS WITH KINGS and the words are: CHECKERS, DECK OF CARDS, MONARCHY, NHL.
How I solved today’s Connections
Hm, lots of tricky and unusual words today. I do see SORTS and TYPES, so I wonder if there’s a category of categories today: SORTS, TYPES, KINDS… oh, and STRIPES, as in “people of all STRIPES.” ?
DECK OF CARDS and CHECKERS could go together because they’re both ways to play games. Not sure what goes with them though.
NHL usually means National Hockey League, but I don’t really see what would match with it—there aren’t any other acronyms (as far as I can tell), there isn’t anything else related to sports. That’s tricky. Maybe it’s one of those “THINGS THAT COULD BE DESCRIBED WITH ___” categories where they all have a word in common, like “stick” or “sport.”
I do see that PASS, HAND, GIVE, and DELIVER probably go together as straightforward synonyms, so let’s get those out of the way. ?
A-F is another weird one. It looks like a range of letters of the alphabet. Oh, maybe there’s a category referring to parts of a whole. A-F is part of the alphabet, PERCENTAGE refers to part of a whole, and maybe THUMBS because they’re part of the hand? This seems like a stretch. The only thing I can think of that might round out the category is STARS, as in “STARS and stripes.”
Oh wait, maybe the other category is things with kings—a DECK OF CARDS has a king, a MONARCHY has a king, the game CHECKERS involves getting “kinged,” and after a quick Google, I learn that there’s an NHL team called the Kings. ?
That leaves PERCENTAGE, STARS, THUMBS, and A-F—let’s see if my theory about “part of a whole” was right. ? Oh, RATINGS SYSTEMS. So A-F refers to letter grades in school. I guess I was kind of right, but not really. I had the gist, anyway!
How to play Connections
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 Games app (formerly the 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.
How to win Connections
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!
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