Looking for Friday’s Connections tips and answers instead? You can find them here:

ForbesNYT “Connections” tips and answers for Friday, December 20thFrom Kris Holt

Hey people! Welcome to the penultimate weekend of the year. ‘Tis the season for holiday celebrations, sleeping in, reconnecting with friends and loved ones, and preparing for more of the same in the coming weeks. Of course, I will continue to be there for you every day, but I wish you a wonderful, enjoyable and relaxing holiday.

Before we begin, I created a discussion group for Connections and this column on Discord. You can chat with me and other people about any game (and other topics). I’m always interested in finding out how other people approach the game, so join in! It’s fun.

It’s also the best way to give me feedback on the column, especially on the rare(!) occasions when I mess something up.

Today NYT Connections Hints and answers for Saturday, December 21st will follow soon.

How to play connections

Connections is a free, popular one New York Times daily pun. You will receive a new puzzle every day at midnight. You can play on that NYT Website or gaming app.

You will be presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to divide them into four groups of four by figuring out the connections between them. The groups can be items you can click on, names of research participants, or words preceded by a body part.

Each puzzle has only one solution, and you have to be careful when it comes to words that could fit into more than one category. You can mix up the words to perhaps better see the connections between them.

Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to understand, blue and green are in the middle, and the purple group is usually the most difficult. The purple group often contains puns.

Select four words that you think go together and click Send. If you guess and are wrong, you lose a life. When you’re close to finding the right group, you may see a message saying you’re one word away from the right group, but you still need to figure out which word to swap.

If you make four mistakes, the game is over. Let’s make sure that this doesn’t happen with the help of some tips, and if you really find it difficult, even with today’s ones Connections Answer. Like with Wordle and other similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats.

If you have one NYT You can access the publications with the All Access or Games subscription Connections Archive. This includes every previous game from Connectionsso you can go back and play any songs you missed.

Aside from the first 60 or so games, you should be able to find my clues for each grid via Google if you need to! Simply click here and enter the date of the game for which you need hints or answers to the search query.

What are today’s connection notes?

Scroll slowly! Right after the clues for each of today’s Connections Groups, I will reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you what words appear in them.

Today’s 16 words are…

• BAND
• SLEDS
• NONSENSE
• PAN
• COOK
• GRIEGRAM
• CIRCLE
• CANOPY
• POT
• O
• STATUETTE
• POT
• RING
• MURPHY
• CASSEROLE
• BAND

And the clues for today Connections Groups are:

• Yellow group – like a tire or the upside down part of a roller coaster
• Green Group – Kitchen Appliances
• Blue Group – perhaps lay down your weary head
• Purple group – linked by a first name

What are today’s sorority groups?

Do you need additional help?

Be warned: We’re starting to get into this Spoiler territory.

Today Connections Groups are…

• Yellow group – loop
• Green group – cooking vessels
• Blue group – types of beds
• Purple Group – Things called “Oscar.”

What are today’s connection solutions?

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today Connections Answer.

This is your final warning!

Today Connections Answers are…

• Yellow group – loop (BAND, CIRCLE, HOOP, RING)
• Green group – cooking vessels (casserole, pot, pan, pot)
• Blue Group – Types of Beds (BUNK, CANOPY, MURPHY, SLEIGH)
• Purple Group – Things Called “Oscar” (BALONEY, GROUCH, O, STATUETTE)

There wasn’t a perfect game today, but for me it’s two wins in a row. This is what happened to me:

🟩🟩🟩🟩

🟨🟪🟨🟨

🟦🟦🟦🟦

🟨🟨🟨🟨

🟪🟪🟪🟪

CROCK, BALONEY and BUNK’s red herring almost got me. But I found the greens first.

I made a mistake with CIRCLE, O, RING and HOOP which caused me to stay away from a group. BAND has to fit in there instead, I thought.

I decided to change strategy as I thought I had the blues. I wasn’t entirely sure if I should include SLEIGH, but I took a chance and it worked out.

This didn’t really help with the group of round things, but including BAND instead of O meant I had the yellow ones.

I didn’t figure out the purple connection, but I probably should have caught it between GROUCH and STATUETTE. When I saw the former on the starting grid, the first thing that came to mind was Oscar the complainer.

In the NATO alphabet, OSCAR means O. Meanwhile, Oscar Mayer produces BALONEY. As for STATUETTE, that refers to an Academy Award, i.e. an Oscar.

That’s all for today Connections Hints and answers. Be sure to check out my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution to Sunday’s game if you need it.

PS: I’m not a big Muse fan, but I really like some of their songs. One that I particularly like is Knights of Cydonia. I think it’s the band’s magnum opus. It is an exuberant, operatic rock song that contains thematic elements of the Wild West. I happened to be there for the very first live performance of the song and it blew me away:

I wish you a wonderful day! Call someone you love!

If you feel like it, please do it Follow my blog for more coverage of Connections and other puns and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me a lot! Keep following me too Bluesky! It’s fun there.