NEW ‘Connections’ Hints and Answers for Saturday 14th December

On By Littum

Looking for tips and answers on Friday Connections instead? You can find them here:

ForbesNEW ‘Connections’ hints and answers for Friday 13th DecemberBy Chris Holt

Hello! I hope you have some good weekend plans and don’t spend too much time dealing with Christmas shopping.

This week, Google released its list of top search trends for 2024. The top search trend in play this year was not Fortnite or Helldivers 2 or Call of Duty. No! That was it Connections. It’s pretty neat. Thanks for hanging out with me, regardless of whether you found the column that way.

Before we get started, I’ve started a discussion group for Connections and this column on Discord. You can chat about each game (and other topics) with me and other people. I’m always curious about how other people approach the game, so join in! It will be fun.

It’s also the best way to give me feedback on the column, especially on the rare(!) occasions when I mess up.

Today’s NEW Connections advice and answers for Saturday 14 December are on their way.

How Connections plays

Connections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on NEW website or game app.

You are presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by finding out the connections between them. The groups can be things like clickable items, names of research study participants, or words with a body part in front.

There is only one solution to each puzzle and you have to be careful when it comes to words that can fit into more than one category. You can mix up the words to perhaps help you see connections between them.

Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is usually the hardest. The purple group often involves puns.

Choose four words that you think fit together and press send. If you guess and you’re wrong, you lose a life. If you’re close to having a correct group, you may see a message telling you that you’re one word away from getting it right, but you still need to figure out which one to swap.

If you make four mistakes, it’s game over. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen with some tips and if you’re really struggling, today’s is Connections answer. As with Wordle and other similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chat.

If you have one NEW Free access or Play subscription, you can access the publication’s Connections file. This includes all previous games of Connectionsso you can go back and play any of them you missed.

Apart from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find my tips for each grid via Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query.

What’s today’s hookup tip?

Roll slowly! Right after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I will reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you what words are included in them.

Today’s 16 words are…

  • GOING
  • SOLE
  • GENUINE
  • BUTTER
  • FLUKE
  • SOLD
  • DIVA
  • SUN
  • ONCE
  • SOLO
  • TONGUE
  • YUAN
  • POUND
  • TWICE
  • WORLD
  • MULLE

And hints for today Connections groups are:

  • Yellow group — sealife
  • Green group — familiar sounds on Antiques Roadshow or at Sotheby’s
  • Blue Group –
  • Purple group — don’t spill tea with these

What are today’s connection groups?

Do you need extra help?

Be warned: we’re starting to come in spoiler territory.

Today’s Connections groups are…

  • Yellow group – fish
  • Green group — words in an auction closing sentence
  • Blue group — global currencies
  • Purple group — words before “cup”

What are today’s connections answers?

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll down the page any further until you’re ready to find out about today Connections answer.

This is your last warning!

Today’s Connections the answers are…

  • Yellow group — fish (FLUKE, MULLET, KANG, KANG)
  • Green group — words in an auction closing sentence (GO, ONCE, TWICE, SOLD)
  • Blue Group — Global Currencies (POUND, REAL, SOL, YUAN)
  • Purple group — words before “cup” (BUTTER, DIVE, SOLO, WORLD)

I’m back to winning with a perfect game. Here’s how I managed:

I really needed an easy win after losing three games in a row. I almost got it when I hesitated on a few points here.

The yellows and blues more or less stood out when I put the word list together, and the greens came together in my mind when I assembled the first group.

I wasn’t 100% sure that the MULLET and TANG were fish. I just had that nagging feeling. I was convinced that FLUKE and SOLE were half of the group, so I went along.

The greens were immediately next. It stung my brain terribly to see the game misorder the words (albeit alphabetically) after I submitted them. “GOING, ONCE, SOLD, TWICE” looks so, so wrong and I had to correct it in my own answer list above.

Blues was next. Again, I wasn’t quite sure that SOL belonged, but I knew that POUND (UK), REAL (Brazil) and YUAN (China) should go together. As it turns out, SOL is the currency of Peru. I just learned something new.

That left the purple ones. I didn’t make the connection. But it was once one of those that felt blindingly obvious in retrospect.

That’s all there is to it for today Connections clues and answers. Remember to check my blog for tips and the fix for Sunday’s game if you need them.

PS The other day my colleagues and I were discussing the news that stop-motion studio Aardman and The Pokémon Company are collaborating on a new project, likely a TV show or movie. One of them mentioned that Aardman was behind the all-timer music video for “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel. I didn’t know that!

It got me wondering what the former Genesis frontman is up to these days. So I found a video of him singing the song on tour last year.

My God, he sounds great and even still sings “Sledgehammer” in his original key. This is so, so good. I must have listened to it 10 times in the last few days:

Harry Styles’ cover is also fantastic:

Have a nice day! Call someone you love!

If you are so inclined, go for it follow my blog for more coverage of Connections and other puns and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me a lot! Also follow me further Blue sky! It’s fun there.