The New York Times daily Connections puzzle continues to challenge players with its unique word association categories. Today’s edition (#928) proved particularly difficult, with the purple category demanding careful consideration. Here’s a breakdown of the solutions, along with insights into why some groupings were more complex than others.
Decoding Today’s Categories
The puzzle is designed with varying difficulty levels, from straightforward yellow groups to the notoriously tricky purple category. The goal is to identify four words that share a common theme. The Times provides a post-game analysis tool to track player performance, including completion rates and streaks. This feature adds a layer of gamification for dedicated players.
Hints and Solutions
Here’s how the categories broke down today:
- Yellow (Easiest): The theme was “ornate, as praise.” The four words were excessive, flowery, melodramatic, and purple. These terms all describe exaggerated or overly embellished expression.
- Green: The theme was “create.” The answers were coin, fashion, hatch, and make up. These words represent different acts of bringing something new into existence.
- Blue: The theme was “things with stems.” The four answers were cherry, flower, musical note, and wine glass. This category highlights objects that physically feature a stem or stalk-like structure.
- Purple (Most Difficult): The theme was “comprised of solfege (do-re-mi).” The answers were Laredo, mire, retire, and Solti. This grouping proved challenging because the connection to musical syllables is obscure; each word contains a syllable from the solfege scale (La, Mi, Re, Sol).
Why The Purple Category Matters
The purple category is intentionally the most difficult. This design element forces players to think outside conventional associations. The inclusion of proper nouns (Laredo, Solti) further complicates the puzzle, as they don’t immediately suggest a musical connection. This high-level ambiguity tests not just vocabulary, but also lateral thinking skills.
Recurring Puzzle Patterns
The Times has released previous particularly difficult puzzles, which may reveal underlying patterns. For example:
- #5: “Things you can set” (mood, record, table, volleyball).
- #4: “One in a dozen” (egg, juror, month, rose).
- #3: “Streets on screen” (Elm, Fear, Jump, Sesame).
- #2: “Power ___” (nap, plant, Ranger, trip).
- #1: “Things that can run” (candidate, faucet, mascara, nose).
These puzzles highlight a tendency towards abstract or metaphorical themes, often requiring unconventional interpretations.
Conclusion
Today’s Connections puzzle underscored the game’s increasing complexity. The purple category, in particular, demonstrated how the puzzle tests not only linguistic knowledge but also unconventional association skills. Players who consistently engage with the puzzle are likely to improve their pattern recognition over time, but the Times ensures that each edition presents a fresh challenge.
