Today's NYT Connections Hints (and Answer) for Thursday, April 18, 2024
If you are searching for the Connections answer for Thursday, April 18, 2024, then continue reading. I will provide some clues, tips, and strategies, and eventually reveal the solutions to all four categories. Along the way, I will explain the meanings of the trickier words and we will understand how everything fits together. Please be aware that there are spoilers below for April 18, NYT Connections #312! Proceed if you would like hints (and then the answer) to today's Connections game. If you want an easy way to refer back to our Connections hints every day, you can bookmark this page. You can also find our previous hints there if you want to catch up on what you missed in a previous puzzle. Below, I will give you some subtle hints for today's Connections answers. And further down the page, I will reveal the themes and answers. Take your time and only take the hints that you need! Hints for the themes in today's Connections puzzle: Here are some spoiler-free hints for the groupings in today's Connections: BEWARE: Spoilers follow for today's Connections puzzle! We are about to give away some of the answers. If you don't want the whole thing spoiled, scroll slowly. The full solution will be a bit further down. A heads up about the tricky parts: There is only one word on the board related to movies/television, and it's neither MEAN nor GIRLS, nor is it OZ. Are you ready to learn the answers to today's Connections puzzle? I will reveal them all below. What are the yellow words in today's Connections? The yellow grouping is considered the most straightforward. The theme for today's yellow group is SIDEWALK SIGHTS and the words are: CURB, GRATE, GUTTER, MANHOLE. What are the green words in today's Connections? The green grouping is supposed to be the second-easiest. The theme for today's green category is HAVE IN MIND and the words are: AIM, INTEND, MEAN, PLAN. What are the blue words in today's Connections? The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today's blue category is UNIT ABBREVIATIONS and the words are: CAL, GAL, IN, OZ. What are the purple words in today's Connections? The purple grouping is considered the hardest. The theme for today's purple category is GOLDEN ___ and the words are: FLEECE, GIRLS, PARACHUTE, RULE. Now, let me share how I solved today's Connections: MEAN and GIRLS immediately stood out to me, which I assume was intentional. However, I do a full scan of the board to avoid getting distracted. MANHOLE catches my attention as a word with limited meanings, so I search for other words that might go with it. I notice CURB, GRATE, and GUTTER, but nothing else fits the theme. 🟨 INTEND and PLAN go together as verbs meaning "to try" or "to attempt." Through that perspective, MEAN and AIM also fit. 🟩 While staring at OZ, it's hard not to think of a yellow brick road. Then I realize there are several short terms which could be abbreviations of some kind. Ah, OZ, CAL, GAL, and IN are all abbreviations for units of measurement. 🟦 That leaves FLEECE, GIRLS, PARACHUTE, and RULE. There is nothing obvious about what connects these words, so it's probably a fill-in-the-blank. This one takes some time, and although it's tempting to submit the remaining four clues and see the answer, I prefer to solve it before doing so. Gotta keep those Connections skills sharp, you know? I try a few words without much success. (Pants? Fuzzy? No.) Eventually, I realize that "golden" works with GIRLS, PARACHUTE, and RULE. I have to Google "golden fleece" to see if that means anything, and I discover that it's a term from Greek mythology. Makes sense! 🟪 To win the Connections game, start by finding it on the New York Times website or in their Games app (formerly the Crossword app). You will see a game board with 16 tiles, each containing a word or phrase. Your task is to select a group of four tiles that have something in common. Usually, they are all the same type of thing (for example: RAIN, SLEET, HAIL, and SNOW are all types of wet weather), but sometimes there is wordplay involved (for example, BUCKET, GUEST, TOP TEN, and WISH are all types of lists: bucket list, guest list, and so on). Select four items and click the Submit button. If your guess is correct, the category and color will be revealed. (Yellow is easiest, followed by green, then blue, then purple.). If your guess is incorrect, you will have a chance to try again. You win when you have correctly identified all four groups. But if you make four mistakes before finishing, the game ends and the answers are revealed. To win Connections, it is crucial to know that the groupings are designed to be tricky. Expect to see overlapping groups. For example, one puzzle appeared to include six breakfast foods: BACON, EGG, PANCAKE, OMELET, WAFFLE, and CEREAL. However, BACON turned out to be part of a group of painters with CLOSE, MUNCH, and WHISTLER, and EGG was in a group of things that come by the dozen, along with JUROR, ROSE, and MONTH. So, don't hit "submit" until you have confirmed that your group of four contains only those four things. If you are stuck, another strategy is to look for the words that seem to have no connection to the others. If you associate WHISTLER solely with the painting "Whistler's Mother," you might be onto something. When I solved that one, I ended up googling whether there was a painter named Close because Close didn't fit any of the obvious themes either. Another way to win when you are stuck is, of course, to read a few helpful hints - which is why we share these pointers every day. Come back tomorrow for the next puzzle!