Looking for Sunday’s NYT Connections hints, clues and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey, folks! Welcome to the start of a new week.
It’s Monday, and you know what that means around these parts: we kick off the column with a fun, upbeat song to help you shake off those cobwebs and get that tushy (and the rest of your body) moving a bit. Let’s get the dopamine and endorphins flowing.
This week, we’re going back to the ‘80s and an early hit for Depeche Mode. “Just Can’t Get Enough” has such a catchy riff and it rarely fails to get me dancing a little:
Before we begin, I’ve set up a discussion group for NYT Connections and this column on Discord. We have a great little community over there and we chat about more than NYT games. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot.
It’s also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare(!) occasions that I mess something up since I don’t look at the comments or Twitter much.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Monday, April 14, are coming right up.
How To Play Connections
Connections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on the NYT website or Games app.
You’re presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by figuring out the links between them. The groups could be things like items you can click, names for research study participants or words preceded by a body part.
There’s only one solution for each puzzle, and you’ll need to be careful when it comes to words that might fit into more than one category. You can shuffle the words to perhaps help you see links between them.
Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is usually the most difficult one. The purple group often involves wordplay.
Select four words you think go together and press Submit. If you make a guess and you’re incorrect, you’ll lose a life. If you’re close to having a correct group, you might see a message telling you that you’re one word away from getting it right, but you’ll still need to figure out which one to swap.
If you make four mistakes, it’s game over. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen with the help of some hints, and, if you’re really struggling, today’s Connections answers. As with Wordle and other similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats.
If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the publication’s Connections archive. This includes every previous game of Connections, so you can go back and play any of those that you have missed.
Aside from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find my hints via Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query.
What Are Today’s Connections Hints?
Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.
Today’s 16 words are…
- HUNT
- CHECK
- GAME
- FORD
- PRESIDENT
- PLAY
- CAR
- STOP
- OXEN
- BLOCK
- MOVIE
- ACTOR
- DAM
- DYSTENTERY
- DIRECTOR
- CONCERT
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — limit, prohibit
- Green group — better secure your entry in advance for these
- Blue group — cholera and broken axles are obstacles here
- Purple group — linked by a shallow part of a river or other body of water that one can wade across. (Dude, the answer is like, right there. Right… there)
What Are Today’s Connections Groups?
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.
Today’s Connections groups are…
- Yellow group — restrict
- Green group — ticketed events
- Blue group — associated with the game The Oregon Trail
- Purple group — what “Ford” might refer to
What Are Today’s Connections Answers?
Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.
This is your final warning!
Today’s Connections answers are…
- Yellow group — restrict (BLOCK, CHECK, DAM, STOP)
- Green group — ticketed events (CONCERT, GAME, MOVIE, PLAY)
- Blue group — associated with the game The Oregon Trail (DYSTENTERY, FORD, HUNT, OXEN)
- Purple group — what “Ford” might refer to (ACTOR, CAR, DIRECTOR, PRESIDENT)
Another perfect game and my streak now sits at 48 wins. Can’t say I really loved this one though. Here’s how I fared:
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
DYSTENTERY immediately made me think of The Oregon Trail and perhaps types of deaths in video games, but it was probably more likely to be a purple word considering the rest of the grid. PRESIDENT and DIRECTOR felt like they could go together as figures of authority, but nothing else really made sense with them.
After a few minutes of thought, I realized that STOP and BLOCK matched up. DAM and CHECK aligned with them for the yellows.
I figured out the greens next, as I supposed that PLAY was a noun rather than a verb since STOP was out of the way.
At that point, I came back around to my first thought. There are OXEN in The Oregon Trail. There’s a HUNT too. FORD seemed like the most likely remaining option, so I took a stab and it paid off. A ford is a shallow part of a river that can be crossed on foot, and that plays a role in the game.
That left the purples. I don’t hate that they’re linked by another word on the board, but it feels a little cheap to me. I did thing of Harrison Ford when I first saw that word on the grid. He’s obviously the ACTOR here.
The CAR naturally refers for Ford cars. The DIRECTOR could be either Tom Ford (whose A Single Man is truly beautiful and I still want the house featured in it) or John Ford. The PRESIDENT is, of course, Gerald Ford.
That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Tuesday’s game if you need them.
P.S. We’re big fans of OK Go around these parts. The band’s earwormy songs and incredibly creative videos have made them such a treat to follow over the years.
They have a new album that just came out on Friday called And the Adjacent Possible. The latest single, “Love,” has an accompanying video that’s as intricate and mind-melting as ever. This one, I’m told, was shot in a decommissioned train station last month. The team made smart use of mirrors and robot arms to create a fun kaleidoscope of a music video:
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Call someone you love!
Please follow my blog for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Sharing this column with other people who play Connections would be appreciated too. Also, follow me on Bluesky! It’s fun there.