Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on December 27 for puzzle #565 is a bit harder than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2.8 out of 5.
Every day, we update this article with Connections hints and tips to help you find all 4 of today's answers so you can keep your Connections streak going. And if the clues aren't enough, you'll find all four answers below, with the category titles and the correlating words.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #564, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #565. 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.
Today's Connections words are: Taps, Unicorn, Iron, Bacon, Presses, Phoenix Car, Bugler, Bridges, Africa, Toast, Washington, Grits, Hits, Hash, Clicks
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Breakfast sides
- 🟩 Green: Pushes, as a button
- 🟦 Blue: They have a horn
- 🟪 Purple: Oscar-winning actors
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're hungry for an early morning meal, just turn on your oven with the press of a button. Don't include any horned animals in your meal, or else you won't win any awards.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #565?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Breakfast sides: Bacon, Grits, Hash, Toast
- 🟩 Pushes, as a button: Click, Hits, Presses, Taps
- 🟦 They have a horn: Africa, Bugler, Car, Unicorn
- 🟪 Oscar-winning actors: Bridges, Irons, Phoenix, Washington
Today was a complex puzzle for me, though I got yellow and green almost instantly (yellow first; perhaps I was just hungry for some breakfast).
After the first two, I wasted a couple of guesses on the wrong track. I thought it was places with Washington, Phoenix and Africa, which is clearly where they wanted me to go.
Eventually, with one guess left, I linked Bugler, Africa and Unicorn as musical places and things. It was a stretch, but it was all I could find. I threw car in completely on a whim and got it right. From there, it was just putting the last four together since there were no other options.
While I solved today's puzzle, it didn't feel like a win since I didn't actually make the horn connection, and I just lucked into it. Hopefully, you had better results than me!
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 APPROXIMATELY: ABOUT, AROUND, LIKE, ROUGHLY
- 🟩 TREES: ELDER, PALM, PINE, SPRUCE
- 🟦 SIZABLE, AS AN AMOUNT: HANDSOME, HEALTHY, RESPECTABLE, TIDY
- 🟪 U.S. STATE ABBREVIATIONS, PER AP STYLE GUIDE: ALA, ARK, MISS, ORE
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #564, which had a difficulty rating of 32.5 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
Yesterday's puzzle was fun, and I found it to be relatively easy. I actually started with blue, making the connection to things being large with handsome, healthy and respectable. Tidy was a bit of a lucky guess, though it makes sense now that I know what it is.
I got the yellow second, and it felt like this could have been green because it was so straightforward. From there, I hit the green section and quickly noticed three obvious types of trees. I used an educated guess for the Elder as a type of tree and was correct.
For purple, I only got it because they were the last four. Even as an AP-trained writer, I wouldn't have figured out U.S. State Abbreviations no matter how long I thought about it, so I'm glad it was the last four left.
