NYT 'Connections' Hints And Answers For Saturday, December 28

16 hours ago

Forbes

Find the links between the words to win today's game of Connections.

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

ForbesNYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Friday, December 27By Kris Holt

Hey, folks! We’re still in the holiday dead zone for the most part, so I hope you’re making the most of this time to relax and enjoy yourself with loved ones.

For the second year in a row, I’m getting far too into the World Darts Championship. There’s nothing else quite like it in sports, and the way that this pub game has been turned into an absolute spectacle that captivates millions is pretty incredible. Love the darts, me.

Before we get started, I’ve started a discussion group for Connections and this column on Discord. You can chat about each game (and other topics) with me and other folks. I’m always interested to find out how other people approach the game, so join us! It’s fun.

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

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Saturday, December 28, 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 for each grid 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...

MINEFIELD HABIT ITSY HORNETS’ NEST PANDORA’S BOX HERSHEY PIECE OF CAKE AEGIS HISTAMINE SURE THING APPLE OF DISCORD TIRES EASY GOLDEN FLEECE CAN NO SWEAT

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

Yellow group — no problemo, you’ve got this Green group — Zeus will likely have been aware of these Blue group — the beginnings really belong in this group Purple group — heels and rocks would fit in here 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 — “nothing to it!” Green group — objects from Greek myth Blue group — starting with possessive pronouns Purple group — proverbial things to kick 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 — “nothing to it!” (EASY, NO SWEAT, PIECE OF CAKE, SURE THING) Green group — objects from Greek myth (AEGIS, APPLE OF DISCORD, GOLDEN FLEECE, PANDORA’S BOX) Blue group — starting with possessive pronouns (HERSHEY, HISTAMINE, ITSY, MINEFIELD) Purple group — proverbial things to kick (CAN, HABIT, HORNETS’ NEST, TIRES)

Back-to-back perfect games have boosted my overall streak to six wins. Here’s how I fared:

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Phew, this was a lot more straightforward than it looked at first glance. There was a potential red herring of things that can cause problems if disturbed — PANDORA’S BOX, MINEFIELD and HORNET’S NEST — but I sidestepped that easily enough.

The yellows stood out like a sore thumb, so I got those first. Easy peasy. The greens were up next. I was pretty sure about three of them. Even though I didn’t know what AEGIS was, it was the only word that seemed to make sense with the others. Looking it up after the fact, I learned that it’s an animal skin or shield mentioned in the Iliad.

I thought there would be some kind of wordplay here, given that MINEFIELD and HISTAMINE start and end with the same four letters (and also because there’s nothing else at all on the grid that made sense with the latter on the surface). But as I looked at the remaining words more closely, I saw that four of them started with his, hers, its and mine. Those had to be the purples.

I’ll be honest, it’s been a long (but fun!) week, so I didn’t put much thought into figuring out the connection between the blues. But it all made sense once I saw the answer pop up.

“Kick the TIRES” is an expression meaning to carry out research before buying something or making an investment. “Kick the CAN down the road” means to delay dealing with a problem until later. “Kick the HORNET’S NEST” means to stir up trouble or cause controversy. And “kick the HABIT” means to give up something harmful that you’ve done for a long time.

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 Sunday’s game if you need them.

P.S. I don’t remember the last time I heard this, but after seeing NO SWEAT on the grid, the Inner Circle song “Sweat (A La La La La Long)” got firmly lodged in my head. Anyone else suddenly craving a mid-winter escape to the Caribbean?

Have a great day! Make sure to drink enough water! Call someone you love!

If you’re so inclined, please do follow my blog for more coverage of Connections and other word games and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Also, follow me on Bluesky! It’s fun there.