The New York Times Connections puzzle for February 17, 2024, challenges players to group words based on shared themes. This guide provides hints and solutions for today’s puzzle, including the notoriously difficult purple category.
Understanding the Puzzle
Connections presents 16 words that fall into four groups of four. The goal is to identify the connections between these words, ranging from straightforward associations to more obscure relationships. The game tracks player performance via a bot that analyzes answer times and accuracy.
Today’s Hints
To help you crack the puzzle, here are hints categorized by difficulty:
- Yellow (Easiest): The words relate to high velocity.
- Green: These terms describe flavors commonly used in Chinese cooking.
- Blue: The connection involves a quick, repetitive action with physical objects.
- Purple (Hardest): The theme revolves around informal terms for something that doesn’t work as expected.
Today’s Solutions
Here are the correct groupings for the February 17 Connections puzzle:
- Yellow Group: DART, FLASH, SPEED, ZIP. These words all refer to something happening very quickly.
- Green Group: HOISIN, OYSTER, PLUM, SOY. These are popular sauces used in Chinese cuisine.
- Blue Group: SLIP, LEAF, SKIM, THUMB. These words all describe actions you take while riffling through pages of paper.
- Purple Group: BOMBAY (bomb), BUSTLE (bust), FLOPPY (flop), MISSUS (miss). The connection here is that each word is a synonym for “dud,” a term meaning a failure.
The purple category, as usual, demands lateral thinking. The puzzle’s difficulty stems from the subtle, indirect relationships between the words.
Solving Connections consistently requires both vocabulary and the ability to recognize abstract connections. The game’s analytics feature is a popular way for players to track their progress and compare scores with others.
