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 Tuesday’s:
It’s Wednesday, and you know what that means: it’s time for another round of Connections!
Late August/early September is one of my favorite times of the year for many reasons, but one of the big ones is that’s when the summer transfer window for European football (I can’t call it soccer) teams to buy and sell players closes until January. There was a ton of activity this summer, especially in the Premier League, where teams splashed out around $4 billion on players.
Deadline day is often especially exciting as teams pursue last-minute deals and even widely expected moves fall apart. I enjoyed this year’s edition immensely.
It was a bit like the season finale of a popular show. Some storylines were wrapped up, and others became cliffhangers. For instance, it seemed like Liverpool were about to buy Marc Guéhi (who has entered the last year of his contract) only for the move to collapse when his current club, Crystal Palace, were unable to bring in replacements in time. So he’s going to be there until at least January. So much drama. I love 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 Wednesday, September 3 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…
- WED
- NES
- DAY
- DAWN
- FLOWER
- BOND
- GENESIS
- ALF
- MTV
- FLY
- FUSE
- START
- COMBINE
- POLE
- BIRTH
- VHS
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- 🟨 Yellow group — appropriate for what’s ostensibly the easiest group of the bunch and where many people tend to get things under way
- 🟩 Green group — bring together
- 🟦 Blue group — screen icons of yesteryear, for short
- 🟪 Purple group — these possibly, probably, can be linked together politely
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 — START
- 🟩 Green group — FUSE
- 🟦 Blue group — ALF
- 🟪 Purple group — FLY
What Are Today’s NYT Connections Groups?
Today’s Connections groups are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — beginning
- 🟩 Green group — join
- 🟦 Blue group — TV-related abbreviations in the ’80s
- 🟪 Purple group — may_____
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 — beginning (BIRTH, DAWN, GENESIS, START)
- 🟩 Green group — join (BOND, COMBINE, FUSE, WED)
- 🟦 Blue group — TV-related abbreviations in the ’80s (ALF, MTV, NES, VHS)
- 🟪 Purple group — may_____ (DAY, FLOWER, FLY, POLE)
The “Wednesday” reference on the top line was cute, but as soon as I saw NES, my brain went to Nintendo Entertainment System (which I never actually had – it was a bit before my time). The Sega GENESIS, MTV and VHS seemed like a good group of ’80s cultural artifacts. Alas, I was one away from a group there!
After looking around the rest of the grid, swapping out GENESIS for ALF seemed like the way to go. Indeed, that got me the blues. ALF, a.k.a. Alien Life Form, was the star of a show of the same name.
The yellows were clear enough after that, followed by the greens. Once the purples were left, I figured out that connection before submitting the group.
Not too difficult a game today, I thought. Certainly easier than the ones from Monday or Tuesday, at least for me. But it’s another one that relies on cultural references. My win streak is now up to 187 in a row. 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 Thursday’s game if you need them.
P.S. Topic was the artist for a ReHeardle track a few days ago. I was looking through their list of released singles for some help with a hint (since I’m doing a hints column for that game now, mostly for fun) when I found out that the DJ teamed up with producer ATB for a song called “Your Love (9PM).”
This is a remake of ATB’s ‘90s Eurodance smash “9 PM (Till I Come).” It tickled me that ATB has had so much success off of that one synthesizer hook he came up with on the fly. ATB also reworked that hook for a single called “Don’t Stop.”
I’m not complaining. Good for him and his success! Anyway, here’s that Topic track, which I quite liked:
And, for a point of comparison, here are those two similar-sounding ATB hits from back in the day. I used to listen to both of them a whole lot:
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.