Explore The Thrills Of The New York Times Connections Puzzle

The weekend is finally almost here, and if you need some help with today's Connections puzzle, you've come to the right place. While it may have launched in the summer of 2023, Connections is already The New York Times' second most popular word puzzle game, right behind the viral lockdown sensation Wordle. In Connections' first year, 55.2 million players finished a puzzle with zero mistakes. However, just because some people are good at maintaining a winning streak, it doesn't mean everyone is.

Newsweek has provided instructions on how to play the game below. Clues and the answers for Friday's puzzle are toward the end of the article, so scroll with caution. The brainteaser tasks players with grouping 16 words into four categories based on association. For example, a recent game linked the words "court," "plaza," "square," and "yard," which all came under the category "open space."

Each of the four categories is labeled with a color, which also signifies their difficulty level. Yellow is the easiest category, followed by green, blue, and then purple. However, the puzzles are rarely straightforward, using homophones and wordplay, among other techniques, to keep things interesting. The uniting themes can come from a broad range of categories—including horror film franchises and emoji.

How to Play 'Connections'

The objective of Connections is to group words based on their associations. If all four words are correctly placed into each set, those words will be removed from the board. Each incorrect guess counts toward the mistake tally, and players can make up to four errors before the game is over. Sometimes, a red herring is thrown in to confuse players, meaning that a word can belong to more than one category, but there is only one correct answer. If players find themselves stuck, they can hit the shuffle button to change the arrangement of the words on the screen.

'Connections' #404 Clues for Friday, July 19

Yellow: Nicknames people use for those they're in a relationship with.

Green: Words one may use to hurt another.

Blue: Words that describe different things people put in their cars.

Purple: Words that make sense before a name for a particular piece of furniture.

'Connections' #404 Answers for Friday, July 19

Yellow Category: ROMANTIC PARTNER

Yellow Words: Flame, Lover, Steady, Sweetheart

Green Category: INSULT

Green Words: Burn, Dig, Jab, Slight

Blue Category: GAS PUMP OPTIONS

Blue Words: Diesel, Plus, Premium, Regular

Purple Category: ___ TABLE

Purple Words: Coffee, Periodic, Pool, Water

Did you guess the answers correctly? If so, congratulations! If you didn't, there is no need to worry, as there will be another opportunity to crack the puzzle tomorrow. One of the best things about Connections is seeing if you can improve your score over time. Connections is released at midnight in your local time zone. Newsweek will be back with another round of hints and tips for each new game.