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Today's puzzle is the third fairly easy puzzle in a row this week.
Find our guide to New York Times Connections answers and hints for June 17 below.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #1,102. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #1,101, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Alternatively, visit our how to play NYT Connections guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.
What is Connections
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.
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.
Today's Connections answer — hints to help you solve it
Today's Connection Grid and Words
- Mouth
- Cavity
- Classic
- Calliope
- Iris
- Kindle
- Cheek
- Echo
- Nook
- Lip
- Nemesis
- Typeface
- Sortie
- Recess
- Nerve
- Niche
We have the Connections categories below but here's a hint without the actual titles. Try this out:
- 🟨 Yellow: Opening
- 🟩 Green: Sass
- 🟦 Blue: Gods
- 🟪 Purple: Kind
Today's Connections Group Hints
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Alcove
- 🟩 Green: Bodily words for attitude
- 🟦 Blue: Figures in Greek myth
- 🟪 Purple: Starting with synonyms for "ilk"
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.
Today's Connections answers
The Connections answers on June 16 for puzzle #1,102 are the same difficulty as yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2 out of 5.
- 🟨 Alcove: Cavity, niche, nook, recess
- 🟩 Bodily words for attitude: Cheek, lip, mouth, nerve
- 🟦 Figures in Greek myth: Calliope, echo, iris, nemesis
- 🟪 Starting with synonyms for "ilk": Classic, kindle, sortie, typeface
I'm traveling this week and didn't try to sit down and put more thought into the puzzle, which meant, surprisingly, that even with vibe solving I managed to go down the line.
Cavity and niche clued me to the alcoves so I looked around to found recess and nook.
I wasn't thinking sass or atitude when I started putting together cheek, lip, mouth and then nerve, though I debated iris. I was just thinking face.
Calliope got me to the Greek figures with echo, iris, and nemeis.
And I wrapped it up with classic, kindle, sortie and typeface which synonyms for "ilk".
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Creamy salad dressings: Blue cheese, caesar, green goddess, ranch
- 🟩 Attendants: Court, entourage, retinue, suite
- 🟦 Rare things, idiomatically: Black swan, blue moon, perfect storm, unicorn
- 🟪 What "hoops" might refer to: Basketball, earrings, red tape, rhythmic gymnastics gear
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1,101, which had a difficulty rating of 2 out of 5.
Phrases is how I got into today's puzzle, starting with once in a blue moon. This led me to unicorn, perfect storm, and black swan.
Jump through hoops landed me red tape, which got me to black swan, earrings, and rhythmic gymnastics gear.
Green goddess put me onto salad dressings with blue cheese, caesar, and ranch.
Which left court, entourage, retinue and suite as my final four.
