Cracking Today’s NYT Connection Challenges, June 24Th Puzzles Answered (#379)

Quick Links

• What Is Connections?
• Hints for Today’s Connections Groups
• Today’s NYT Connections Answers
• How Did We Solve This Connections Game?
• How Do You Guess Connections Groups?

Connections is a game from the New York Times that challenges you to find the association between words. It sounds easy, but it isn’t—Connections categories can be almost anything, and they’re usually quite specific. If you need a hand getting the answers, we’ve got you covered.

What Is Connections?

Connections is a game from the New York Times. The objective is simple: sort 16 words into groups of 4. Each group of words will be connected by some common idea or theme. That common element could be anything. We have seen everything from games that rely on the number of letters in the words to categories that require you to spot an extra letter at the end of the word. Sometimes they’re references to economics, other times they reference fairy tales. There is no telling what sort of association there will be between words.

Once you’re confident you understand the connection, select 4 words, then hit “Submit.” You have only four attempts in total, so don’t be too guess-happy.

Hints for Today’s Connections Groups

Here are a few hints for the 379th Connections game to get you started:

• Yellow: When you’ve been injured, physically or emotionally.
• Green: What do these words sound like?
• Blue: What you might expect when you go out to eat.
• Purple: These words pair with a color.

If you still need help, the actual group names are:

• Yellow: Sore to the Touch
• Green: Restaurant Courses
• Blue: Animal Homophones
• Purple: Red _____

Today’s NYT Connections Answers

Sore to the Touch (Yellow):

Delicate, Raw, Sensitive, Tender

Restaurant Courses (Green):

Dessert, Main, Side, Starter

Animal Homophones (Blue):

Bare, Dear, Mousse, New

Red ____ (Purple):

Carpet, Delicious, Meat, Tape

How Did We Solve This Connections Game?

June 24th came together easier than most days.

The first word I looked at was delicate. I happened to look immediately at sensitive, and I realized the group they belonged to must have something to do with pain or discomfort. From there, it was pretty straight forward to associate raw and tender with them. Yellow was “Sore to the Touch.”

I’ve consistently found that saying the words out loud (or at least carefully subvocalizing them) can be helpful, and that was especially the case with the Blue group for June 24th, “Animal Homophones.” Bare, dear, mousse (pronounced moose, not mouse), and New (Gnu, as in a wildebeest) are all homophones. This might have been tough to spot if I didn’t say them out loud.

Dessert, main, starter, and sides are all food-related terms (referring to meal courses), so I just threw them together without much thought. They were in the Green group, “Restaurant Courses.”

That left carpet, delicious meat, and tape in the Purple group. Purple very often involves a missing word, or some connection relating the attributes of the words themselves, so I started there. Eventually, I realized that all the words change meaning when you throw the word “Red” in front of them. Red carpet is either literally or figuratively used to indicate an event is important, red delicious is a type of apple, red meat refers to meat from a mammal, and red tape is an expression that indicates an obstacle that exists due to policy or bureaucracy. Purple was literally just “Red _____.”

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How Do You Guess Connections Groups?

There is no quick, reliable way to approach Connections like there is with Wordle, since Connections isn’t algorithmic. However, there are a few things to keep in mind that can help.

1. Look for similar parts of speech. Are some words verbs and others nouns? Are some adjectives? Try mentally grouping them based on those categories and see if any other patterns jump out at you.
2. Are the words synonyms? Sometimes categories will just be synonyms for a phrase, or very close to synonyms. Don’t rely too closely on this, though. Occasionally, Connections will deliberately throw in words that are sometimes synonyms to mislead you.
3. Try saying the words. Sometimes, saying the words helps. One puzzle we saw included the words go, rate, faster, clip, pace, speed, move, commute, and hurry—all of which are obviously related to the idea of motion. However, when you say them, it becomes a little more obvious that only four (go, move, hurry, faster) are things you’d actually say to prompt someone to get moving.
4. Expect the red herring . Connections usually has words that could be plausibly, yet incorrectly, grouped together. Take the words Bud, Corona, and Light, as an example. You might instinctively see those three words together and assume they’re lumped together in a category related to beer—but they weren’t.
5. Look for distinct words. If a word on your board doesn’t have multiple meanings or can really only be used in one context, try using that word as the basis for a category.
6. Shuffle the board. Sometimes, moving words around will help you look at them in new ways.

If you didn’t solve this one, don’t feel too bad—there’s always tomorrow! And those words may align with a topic you’re interested in, giving you a leg up on the competition.

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