What do the Connections colours mean?

Yellow is the easiest group, then green, blue, and purple (the hardest). Colours appear after you solve a group and mark difficulty, not category type.

How many mistakes do you get in Connections?

You get four mistakes. A fifth wrong guess ends the game and reveals any remaining groups.

What does “One away” mean in Connections?

“One away” means three of the four words you submitted belong to the same group, and one word does not. It still counts as a mistake.

How to Play NYT Connections

Connections is the New York Times’ daily sorting puzzle. You get 16 words and four mistakes to find four hidden groups of four.

How to play, step by step

Scan the 4×4 grid. All 16 words start shuffled. Look for obvious categories and words that could fit more than one idea.

Example board: fruits, seasons, sea creatures, and a wordplay “BREAK ___” set mixed together.
Select four words and submit. Tap a foursome you are confident about. Deselect anytime before submitting.

APPLE, PEAR, GRAPE, and PLUM are selected (dark tiles). Hit Submit if you think they form a group.
Lock in a correct group. A right answer collapses into a coloured banner with the category name and leaves the rest of the board still in play.

FRUITS solves as yellow (easiest). Twelve words remain — keep sorting seasons, sea creatures, and the purple twist.
Mind mistakes and “One away.” Four wrong guesses and the puzzle ends. “One away” means three were right — still a mistake.

APPLE, PEAR, GRAPE, and SPRING are one away from Fruits. One mistake dot is used; three remain.
Clear all four groups. Finish yellow through purple before the mistake track fills up.

A finished board: yellow Fruits, green Seasons, blue Sea Creatures, and purple BREAK ___ (record, silence, news, ground).

Colour difficulty

Colours mark how hard the group was designed to be — not what the category is about.

Yellow — usually the most straightforward category.
Green — still concrete, but a little less obvious.
Blue — looser themes or overlapping vocabulary.
Purple — often wordplay (fill-in-the-blank, shared suffixes, trick meanings) rather than a simple topic.

Connections rules

Find four groups of four from the 16-word grid.
Each solved group gets a difficulty colour: yellow → green → blue → purple.
You can make up to four mistakes before you lose.
Words are often planted to fit more than one reading — that overlap is the trap.

Beginner strategy that actually helps

Solve your surest group first. Shrinking the board removes decoys and makes the leftovers clearer.
Spot the double agents. If a word feels at home in two categories, one of those categories is usually the red herring.
Treat purple as wordplay. Think “___ ring,” shared prefixes, or alternate meanings — not just dictionary topics.
Don’t over-trust “One away.” It confirms three tiles, not which three. Re-check before burning another guess.
Shuffle when stuck. A new layout can break a false pattern your eye keeps locking onto.

Common questions

What do the colours mean?

Difficulty only. Yellow is easiest; purple is hardest. The colour does not tell you the category theme.

How many mistakes do I get?

Four. Use a fifth wrong guess and the game reveals whatever groups you missed.

What does “One away” mean?

Three of your four selections belong together. The fourth does not — and the attempt still costs a mistake.

Play or get help

Play the daily puzzle on The New York Times. For a nudge without dumping every answer, use today’s spoiler-controlled Connections hints. Browse the archive, or try Strands, Wordle, and Spelling Bee.