Each day’s game of NYT Connections goes live at midnight local time. Before we get to today’s Connections hints and answers, here are Sunday’s:
Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to the start of a new week. Hope you had a great weekend. I’m delighted to be back with you.
As you may know by now, I love to kick off the Monday editions of this column with an upbeat, feel-good song. The idea is to brighten your day, and maybe even get you dancing around a little.
Since it’s Labor Day in the U.S. (and Labour Day in Canada), I thought I’d go with a thematically fitting tune. The first one that springs to mind, of course, is “9 To 5” by the legendary Dolly Parton. However, I’ve used that as a song recommendation in the past and I typically don’t like to repeat those.
So, my mind wandered over to the names of artists instead and it settled on Men at Work. “Down Under” seems like the best choice from them, so I’m going with it:
We have a great little community on Discord, where we chat about NYT Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot, and you’re more than welcome to hang out with us.
Discord is also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare (or not-so-rare) occasions that I mess something up. I don’t look at the comments or Twitter much. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my new newsletter, Pastimes.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Monday, September 1 are coming right up.
How To Play NYT 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’s 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 our hints 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 NYT 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…
- PRESIDENT
- MOTHER
- BISHOP
- BIRD
- CLERGY MEMBER
- PREMIERE
- M.L.B. PLAYER
- POPE
- SAINT VALENTINE
- INTRODUCTION
- N.F.L. PLAYER
- LORDE
- LAUNCH
- BURNS
- SAINT PATRICK
- DEBUT
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- 🟨 Yellow group — making their bow
- 🟩 Green group — especially celebrated on certain days
- 🟦 Blue group — like donne and frost
- 🟪 Purple group —
One Word For Each NYT Connections Group
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.
Let’s take a look at one word for each group.
Today’s Connections word hints are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — LAUNCH
- 🟩 Green group — PRESIDENT
- 🟦 Blue group — LORDE
- 🟪 Purple group — BIRD
What Are Today’s NYT Connections Groups?
Today’s Connections groups are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — first appearance
- 🟩 Green group — ones celebrated with holidays
- 🟦 Blue group — famous poets
- 🟪 Purple group — what “cardinal” might refer to
What Are Today’s NYT 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 — first appearance (DEBUT, INTRODUCTION, LAUNCH, PREMIERE)
- 🟩 Green group — ones celebrated with holidays (MOTHER, PRESIDENT, SAINT PATRICK, SAINT VALENTINE)
- 🟦 Blue group — famous poets (BISHOP, BURNS, LORDE, POPE)
- 🟪 Purple group — what “cardinal” might refer to (BIRD, CLERGY MEMBER, M.L.B. PLAYER, N.F.L. PLAYER)
Ooh, well this was an interesting board! I suspected PRESIDENT, SAINT VALENTINE, SAINT PATRICK and BURNS (as in Robert Burns) might be a group of annual celebrations i.e. President’s Day, Burns Night and so on. I wasn’t fully confident about that, so I left those alone to begin with.
Instead, I got the yellows first, since those were clear enough. I then realized the error with my initial instinct as MOTHER is a more natural fit for those holiday words than BURNS. That got me the greens.
I suspected there might have been a slight misdirect with the inclusion of SAINT PATRICK and SAINT VALENTINE, as I figured there were several figures here who could be a saint – including an N.F.L. PLAYER if they ply their trade in New Orleans. But nope, grouping that with CLERGY MEMBER, BISHOP and POPE didn’t put me one away from a group. That meant two of those were blues and two were purples, so I got some information out of it.
I suspected there might be some kind of other sports thing going on with Larry or Sue BIRD in the mix. I was not sure about that though.
My mind kept returning to Robert BURNS, though. After gazing at the grid for longer than I’d like to admit, LORDE kept calling to me. Eventually, I remembered about Audre LORDE. That opened up the blues for me, along with Alexander POPE and Elizabeth BISHOP.
I would have been clueless with the purples, so those were very much by default. I completely forgot that there are M.L.B. (St Louis) and N.F.L. (Arizona) teams called the Cardinals.
The hint, by the way, was a reference to “cardinal sin.” I was stumped for what else to go with!
Tough one today! Those blues and purples were especially tricky. Still, I’m now 15 games away from a 200-win streak – a far longer streak than either professional Cardinals team has ever had. Here’s my grid for today:
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟪🟦🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
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. I found out about this artist, Cult of Venus, while looking at upcoming local concert listings. “Sinner” is a very cool song that reminds me of the work of Kate Bush and Robyn. It instantly went onto my main mega playlist. I hope you dig it too:
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! 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. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my newsletter, Pastimes.