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Today's puzzle isn't too tricky; even the purple connection isn't that difficult to get, especially if you're an 80s fan.
Find our guide to New York Times Connections answers and hints for April 20 below.
Article continues belowWhat 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
- Cyber
- Hourglass
- Blue
- Cloud
- Rod
- Web
- Manic
- Net
- Puff
- Venom
- Hook
- Billow
- Bait
- Plume
- Meatless
- Cannibalism
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: Mass of smoke
- 🟩 Green: Fishing gear
- 🟦 Blue: Associated with black widow spiders
- 🟪 Purple: ___ Monday
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 April 20 for puzzle #1,044 are apparently easier to get than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at just 1.3 out of 5.
- 🟨 Mass of smoke: Billow, cloud, plume, puff
- 🟩 Fishing gear: Bait, hook, net, rod
- 🟦 Associated with Black Widow spiders: cannibalism, hourglass, venom, web
- 🟪 Last Words of Candy Brands in the Singular: Cap, dud, kid, mint
I'm no fisherman, but the first thing that leapt out was the four fishing terms: bait, hook, net and rod.
Then, drawing on working for a technology & lifestyle site, and an 80s music fan, I clocked Blue, Cyber, and Manic must all precede the word Monday, and after some deliberation, I settled on Meatless Monday, and lucked out!
Then, Cloud and Plume caught my eye, and I figured that Puff and billow are the most cloud-adjacent words (certainly moreso than the spider connection, which I clocked from web and venom).
With the "Mass of Smoke" category solved, that just left cannibalism and hourglass to go with the spidery words, for a category all about black widow spiders.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Cheeky: Arch, fresh, sassy, wise
- 🟩 Dress Measurements: Bust, hips, length, waist
- 🟦 Cards in Texas Hold 'Em: Flop, hole, river, turn
- 🟪 Last Words of Candy Brands in the Singular: Cap, dud, kid, mint
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1043, which had a difficulty rating of 2 out of 5.
The two most obvious groupings, to me, were the blue group (Cards in Texas Hold'Em) and the green group (Dress Measurements).
The tricky word here is bust, but once you figure out that's the red herring of the bunch, those two categories jump out nicely.
That left me with the yellow group. Fresh, sassy, and wise fell together pretty easily, and I got Arch easily enough by simply thinking of misbehaving; you "arch" an eyebrow.
That left us with the four remaining answers — cap, dud, kid, and mint — to put together for the purple connection.
