Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on January 6 for puzzle #575 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, #574, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #575. 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: Blanket, Boot, Breeze, Rum, Picnic, Pant, Umbrella, Pie, Heave, Ars, Abc, General, Broad, Gasp, But, Puff
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Breathe hard
- 🟩 Green: Catchall
- 🟦 Blue: Metaphors for easy things
- 🟪 Purple: Synonyms for rear end minus last letter
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: Keep your mind in the toilet but don't strain yourself. It's no walk in the park to round up all these clues.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #575?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Breathe hard: Gasp, Heave, Pant, Puff
- 🟩 Catchall: Blanket, Broad, General, Umbrella
- 🟦 Metaphors for easy things: Abc, Breeze, Picnic, Pie
- 🟪 Synonym for rear end minus last letter: Ars, Boot, But, Rum
Today's jump in difficulty was no joke. After kicking things off by solving yellow with Gasp, Heave, Pant, and Puff, I was properly stumped at where to go next.
I hit a dead end trying to link different types of stores (ABC and General) as well as things you might bring on a picnic. After reshuffling a few times, I realized the Connections crew had a more metaphorical meaning for Picnic in mind, and I picked up Abc, Breeze, and Pie to round out the blue category.
That line of thinking led me to take another, less literal look at Blanket too, which made Broad, General, and Umbrella stick out as other catchall terms.
That left only the purple category as today's rote fill, which was a headscratcher. I always struggle with the homonym and missing one letter clues, and today was no different.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Hardly bustling: Calm, Quiet, Sleepy, Slow
- 🟩 Earn: Gross, Make, Net, Yield
- 🟦 Remote control functions: Home, Mute, Stop, Volume
- 🟪 Words before "drum": Ear, Kettle, Oil, Snare
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #574, which had a difficulty rating of 2 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
As you might expect, based on the lower rating, this puzzle was a breeze. There are only so many definitions I know for Gross, and with no synonyms for "icky" in sight, I started looking around for economic terms, quickly picking up Make, Net, and Yield to round out the green category.
Snare and Sleepy were the clear outliers for me in today's puzzle. Unable to spot any other names of the seven dwarves, I pivoted to Snare, which something told me had to do with drums (or at the very least, I had zero clue what else it could be if that wasn't the case). That led me to Ear, Kettle, and Oil, cinching the hardest category.
Coincidentally, the easiest category came next when I returned to Sleepy and realized it shared a similar definition with the likes of Calm, Quiet, and Slow.
That left only Home, Mute, Stop, and Volume, and the connection was instantly clear given that I celebrated the holidays with my fair share of binge-watching with family and friends.
