NYT Connections today hints and answers — Monday, March 31 (#659)
Get clues and answers for today's NYT Connections to keep your streak

Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on March 31 for puzzle #659 are much easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2.2 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, #658, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #659. 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: Fore, Word, Deposit, Too, Put Away, Screen, Ate, Balance, Besides, Horse, Transfer, To Boot, Had, As Well, Took In, Withdrawal
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If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Consumed
- 🟩 Green: Also
- 🟦 Blue: ATM options
- 🟪 Purple: ___ play
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: Hit up your bank for a burger and a little extra on the side.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #659?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Consumed: Ate, Had, Put Away, Took In
- 🟩 Also: As Well, Besides, To Boot, Too
- 🟦 ATM options: Balance, Deposit, Transfer, Withdrawal
- 🟪 ___ play: Fore, Horse, Screen, Word
Today was a bit of a weird one, because I solved the two medium-difficulty categories right off the bat, only to then get stuck on the easiest and hardest. Womp womp.
Once I saw Deposit and Withdrawal, it was immediately clear it had something to do with banking, and I picked up Balance and Transfer to round out the blue category.
After that, I linked To Boot, Too, and As Well, but I was struggling for a fourth clue for a bit. I took a guess with Besides and managed to get the green category.
I struck out a few times trying to figure out what was the fourth clue to go with At, Put Away, and Took In before I had a "duh" moment and realized Had was another synonym.
That made the purple category today's rote fill with Fore, Horse, Screen, and Word. I tend to miss the categories that are missing a letter or word, and today was no different.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Average: Mean, Norm, Par, Standard
- 🟩 Pictured on the U.S. seal: Arrows, Eagle, Olive Branch, Shield
- 🟦 Proper nouns in Broadway musical titles that are spoken phrases: Birdie, Dolly, Kate, Yankees
- 🟪 ___ man: Bogey, Crafts, Gentle, Spokes
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #657, which had a difficulty rating of 3.4 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
The Connections Crew faked me out with the various golf-related clues yesterday. And here I was preening that I remembered all those terms from Mario Golf. I took another stab at a different thread I'd noticed, Mean and Standard, and it wasn't long before I picked up Norm and released Par fell in line with them neatly.
With the yellow category out of the way, I zeroed in on Dolly, which I had a hunch had to deal with the stageplay Hello, Dolly! Looking around for other Broadway-related clues, I scooped up Birdie, Kate, and Yankees to round out the blue category.
That led me to take another look at Bogey. If it wasn't the golf score, then the only other use I could think of was Boogeyman, so I set about looking for other words that would fit. Crafts and Gentle came easily enough, but Spokes threw me for a loop at first because all I could think of was spokes on a tire.
That only left Arrows, Eagle, Olive Branch, and Shield for the green category, all of which appear on dollar bills often enough to make it a cinch to figure out what the connection was.
Alyse Stanley is a news editor at Tom’s Guide, overseeing weekend coverage and writing about the latest in tech, gaming, and entertainment. Before Tom’s Guide, Alyse worked as an editor for the Washington Post’s sunsetted video game section, Launcher. She previously led Gizmodo’s weekend news desk and has written game reviews and features for outlets like Polygon, Unwinnable, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun. She’s a big fan of horror movies, cartoons, and roller skating.
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