Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on August 23 for puzzle #439 drops down under three compared from yesterday's answers, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 3.6 out of 5.
Every day, we update this article with Connections hints and tips to help you find all 4 of today's answers. And if the hints aren't enough, you'll find all 4 answers below, with the category titles and the correlating words. Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #438, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #439. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Alternatively, visit our how to play NYT Connections guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.
Today's Connections answer — hints to help you solve it
Unlike our guide to today's Wordle answer, where we recommend the best Wordle start words as your strategy, solving Connections relies on identifying connecting categories among 16 words. Each category's difficulty level is represented by a color; yellow is the easiest grouping, and purple is the most challenging. Once you've made 4 mistakes in your guesses, the answers will be revealed, so hints can be helpful.
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Visual interface
- 🟩 Green: Burlesque wear
- 🟦 Blue: Beige shades
- 🟪 Purple: Language homophones
These hints should get you at least some of the way towards finding today's Connections answers. If not, then you can read on for bigger clues; or, if you just want to know the answer, then scroll down further.
Here's a larger hint: If you know burlesque, start there. After that consider paint colors and displays. Wrap it up with languages.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #439?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Visual interface: Display, monitor, screen, terminal
- 🟩 Burlesque wear: Boa, corset, fan, gloves
- 🟦 Beige shades: Buff, cream, fawn, tan
- 🟪 Language homophones: Bask, check, finish, tie
My yo-yo of a week continues with struggles on level 2 difficulty but knocking it down on level 3s.
In my slightly younger days I had a number of performer friends who got into burlesque, so boa, corset, fan and gloves was a an easy first category. I do not miss feathers.
From there I got the yellow category with display, monitor, screen, terminal.
I got stuck on the blue category because I don't think I've ever heard of buff as a beige shade, let alone a color. The only reason I combined it with cream, fawn and tan is because none of the other words fit the color wheel.
I did take a strike trying to make a nails connection work with finish, buff, tan and bask (a stretch, I know). But it did lead me to seeing colors.
I never saw the purple category of language homophones but put together in the final category I got it. It's clever with bask (Basque), check (Czech), finish (Finnish) and tie (Thai).
Yesterday's Connections answers
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #438, which had a difficulty rating of 2.8 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
I tell you what, this week if the difficulty is rated a 3 I'm all over the puzzle. If it's a two, I'm stuck staring blankly at the screen. It's not my week.
To be fair to myself, I was rushing and very distracted by a five-year-old with far too many questions for the time of day.
I managed to get the green category first with deck, floor, level and story. It's so boring I thought it was going to be the yellow.
I took a couple strikes trying to make Orbs happen with globe, sun, moon and egg. Beats me.
Somehow, that led me to accidentally snagging newspaper names with globe, mirror, post and sun. I don't know.
The yellow category finally came through with projector, reel, screen and speaker. I will say I spent most of today thinking of speaker as "orator" and not audio device.
Purple, while fun, was the rote fill with egg, moon, streak and toilet paper. Maybe it would have given it away but wish they had used TP instead toilet paper. Toilet paper as a verb sounds too formal.
Anyway, here's hoping Friday is a 3 so I can get back to it.
