Connections colors and categories explained
Every NYT Connections puzzle hides four categories, and each one comes with a color. Knowing what those colors signal, and which kinds of categories the puzzle likes to reuse, is the fastest way to get better at it.
The four colors are about difficulty
The colors rank how hard each group is meant to be. They say nothing about the subject.
- Yellow: most direct. Typically synonyms or a plain everyday category. If you can name the link in one ordinary word, it is often yellow.
- Green: fairly direct. Still meaning-based, but narrower or needing some general knowledge.
- Blue: takes some thought. Specific knowledge often matters: titles, brands, places, jargon, sports.
- Purple: trickiest. Usually wordplay. The meaning of the words is often irrelevant.
The game does not solve in color order. You can find purple first if you spot it, and many experienced players deliberately leave it for last.
Category types that come up again and again
Synonyms
Four words that mean roughly the same thing, such as words for "hidden" or "remote". These are the backbone of yellow and green groups.
Members of a set
Items from one list: car models, restaurant seating, sculpture materials, securities. Blue groups often narrow the set to one brand or field.
Things that do the same action
Different objects that share a behaviour, such as things you shake. The words look unrelated until you think of what happens to them.
Hidden words
A smaller word hides inside each entry, sometimes across a space: a Greek letter hiding inside a two-word phrase, for example. This is a classic purple.
Starts and ends
Each word begins or ends with a member of a set: month abbreviations at the start, dynasties at the end, and so on.
Fill in the blank
Each word pairs with the same missing word, before or after it. If four words all sound incomplete, try adding a common word to each.
Spelling patterns
Repeated letter chunks, anagrams, homophones, or words that become other words when a letter is removed.
How to spot the purple group early
- Look for entries that feel oddly specific, oddly spelled, or like two words squashed together.
- If a word has no obvious partner by meaning, check its first and last three letters.
- Say the words aloud. Sound-based groups are easy to miss on the page.
Difficulty varies day to day
Some days every group is fair; others lean heavily on trivia or on a single ambiguous word. We rate every puzzle from 1 to 5 on our own scale and show it on each puzzle page, so you can see at a glance whether a tough day was you or the puzzle. Browse past ratings in the archive, or get today's step-by-step Connections hint.