Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on January 10 for puzzle #579 is slightlier easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2.3 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, #578, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #579. 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:
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Be contigent (on)
- 🟩 Green: "Calm down"
- 🟦 Blue: Ingredients on an old fashioned
- 🟪 Purple: Featured in the Monty Hall problem
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: Solve a problem with a drink to calm down without relying on it.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #579?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Be contingent (on): Depend, hinge, rely, rest
- 🟩 "Calm down": Chill, easy, enough, relax
- 🟦 Ingredients in an old fashioned: Bitters, orange, rye, sugar
- 🟪 Featured in the Monty Hall Problem: Car, door, goat, host
This writer is based in Los Angeles, and it's been a stressful week what with the multiple fires across the city. So, seeing bitters and rye made me immediately think of the drink I needed. Led right away to orange and sugar for an old fashioned.
From there, we wanted to relax and I saw easy and chill. I didn't think enough worked with this group but it doesn't work any other category.
I saw the yellow category of depend, hinge, rely and rest but was totally blanking on what the purple category may be.
The Monty Hall problem is a probability question based around three prize doors with a car behind one of them and goats behind the others. You pick a door, say No. 1 and the host opens another one, say No. 3. Then the hosts asks if you want to switch your choice. The probability is that actually yes, you should. Here's some reading if you're curious about the problem and the math behind it.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Vendor's spot at a market: Booth, stall, stand, table
- 🟩 Dog commands: Come, heel, sit, stay
- 🟦 Corporate departments: Finance, IT, Legal, Sales
- 🟪 Last words in "America the Beautiful": From, Sea, Shining, To
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #578, which had a difficulty rating of 2.5 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
There was a puzzle a couple weeks ago where the first row of clues was lions, tigers, bears, oh my. It was so obvious I skipped that grouping until the very end. And it turned out to be the yellow category.
Similarly, today, I saw Sea and Shining and From and immediately thought of the song. However, I didn't think it was real, again, and skipped over it. We'll come back to that.
From there I saw Finance and Legal. Sales was a quick find though it took a moment to see I.T.
Come, heel, sit and stay jumped out next as dog commands.
For some reason, I was still distrustful of the purple category so we grabbed yellow next with booth, stall, stand and table.
Which left the obvious, to me, From sea to shining sea. Sometimes you need to try your really obvious guesses. They're probably right. What's a strike anyway?
