NYT Connections today hints and answers — Monday, March 17 (#645)

NYTimes Connections
(Image credit: Future)

Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on March 17 for puzzle #645 are much easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2 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, #644, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.

Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #645. 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

The New York Times Connections puzzle for March 17

(Image credit: The New York Times Connections)

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: Fiber, Abandon, Dump, Ben Folds, Strand, Freedom, Garbage, Monster, Jackson, String, Thread, Spontaneity, Pickup, Unrestraint, Maroon, and MC.

If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:

  • 🟨 Yellow: Filament
  • 🟩 Green: Uninhibitedness
  • 🟦 Blue: Kinds of trucks
  • 🟪 Purple: Bands minus the number five

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 hints: Brush up on your low riders and numerically themed bands to pull some threads loose.

Today's Connections answers

So, what are today's Connections answers for game #645?

Drumroll, please...

  • 🟨 Filament: Fiber, Strand, String, Thread
  • 🟩 Uninhibitedness: Abandon, Freedom, Spontaneity, Unrestraint
  • 🟦 Kinds of Trucks: Dump, Garbage, Monster, Pickup
  • 🟪 Bands minus the number five: Ben Folds, Jackson, Maroon, MC

Today's puzzle was rated much easier than yesterday's, and it really felt like it. I blazed down the line, starting with the yellow category. It was easy enough to piece together with Fiber, Strand, String, and Thread.

I suspected Maroon and Jackson had something to do with the "five" missing from their names, but I didn't recognize any other bands so I put that on the back burner. Glancing around the remaining clues, I noticed a common definition among the words Abandon, Freedom, Spontaneity, and Unrestraint, which sealed the green category.

After that came blue, which was easy to pick up with Dump, Garbage, Monster, and...well... Pick-up.

That only left Jackson, Maroon, MC, and Ben Folds for the purple category as today's rote fill. I hadn't heard of the last two, so it's little wonder I didn't pick them out.

Yesterday's Connections answers

  • 🟨 Bunch: Cluster, Collection, Constellation, Group
  • 🟩 Ending with silent 't': Ballet, Debut, Rapport, Tarot
  • 🟦 Serial Killer Movies: Monster, Psycho, Seven, Zodiac
  • 🟪 Starting with constellations: Draconian, Hydrant, Leonardo, Library

Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #645, which had a difficulty rating of 3.3 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.

Yesterday's clues threw me for a loop at first but I noticed a lot of synonyms for a bundle of things so I kicked things off with Cluster, Collection, Constellation, and Group to scoop up the yellow category.

I stumbled upon the blue category after I realized the connection between Monster, Psycho and Zodiac and took a stab (haha get it?) with Seven, the only movie I didn't recognize of the bunch.

After that came the purple category, which I'm surprised I got considering I almost never get these kinds of categories. Draconian, Hydrant, Leonardo, and Library just seemed so random that I ended up staring at them long enough to realize it wasn't the words themselves, but rather what they began with that was the connection.

That left the green category as today's rote fill with Ballet, Debut, Rapport, and Tarot.

Scott Younker
West Coast Reporter

Scott Younker is the West Coast Reporter at Tom’s Guide. He covers all the lastest tech news. He’s been involved in tech since 2011 at various outlets and is on an ongoing hunt to build the easiest to use home media system. When not writing about the latest devices, you are more than welcome to discuss board games or disc golf with him. 

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