Mastering The Connections Puzzle: Tips, Clues, And Strategies To Win

Today's Connections puzzle is a tricky one. If you're struggling to solve the game, Newsweek has some helpful hints to give you the boost you need. The word-based game was released in 2023 and has since garnered worldwide popularity. Today, it's The New York Times' second-most played game—with Wordle being the first. In an interview with Newsweek in June, Connections developer and NYT crossword editor Wyna Liu stated that every puzzle is "made from scratch." She shared that she has a notebook and a spreadsheet, like a "digital sketchpad," and rarely knows "where a board is going to go." It really does take a long time to fudge things and try different angles, she said. Warning: The answers for Thursday's Connections puzzle will be revealed at the end of this article, so if you want to try to work them out for yourself, we advise you scroll with caution.

How to Play Connections

If you’re new to Connections, it’s easy to catch on. To start, players are given a table of 16 words. These words must be separated into four groups of four and put into categories based on, well, a similar connection or theme. The categories range in difficulty from yellow, to green, to blue, to purple—with yellow considered the easiest and purple considered the most difficult. As an example, Wednesday's game linked the words "drop cloth," "paint," "roller," and "tape" under the category "Needs for painting a room." This was a green category.

Feeling stuck? Clicking the "Shuffle" button will rearrange the words to help give your brain the boost it needs to answer correctly. If you’re unable to guess correctly after four tries, however, you lose the game and the answers will be revealed. That being said, players have unlimited time to complete the puzzle, which makes it less stressful!

Clues for Thursday, September 26

Newsweek has several clues to help you with today’s Connections puzzle. Here are the clues based on their respective categories:

• Yellow: "Scallop" and "lace" could also be words in this category
• Green: Terms associated with enlarging something
• Blue: What you might say when ordering a drink
• Purple: Things that follow a word starting with "S"

Answers for Thursday, September 26

Yellow Category: DECORATIVE EDGE

• Yellow Words: Border, Frill, Fringe, Trim

Green Category: INCREASE, IN A WAY

• Green Words: Grow, Mount, Swell, Wax

Blue Category: SPECIFICATIONS FOR A BARTENDER

• Blue Words: Dry, Neat, Straight, Virgin

Purple Category: STRING ___

• Purple Words: Bean, Bikini, Cheese, Theory

Way to go if you got Thursday's puzzle correct! If not, don't worry. You'll have another chance on Friday when a new Connections game will be available for you to try. Connections is released at midnight in your local time zone, and Newsweek will return with more hints and answers tomorrow. In the meantime, you can keep busy with other word-based puzzles, like Typochondria, Wordscapes and Words With Friends.