Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on November 16 for puzzle #524 are a skosh easier 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. And if the hints aren't enough, you'll find all 4 answers below, with the category titles and the correlating words. Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #523, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #524. 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.
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Things that prevent leaks
- 🟩 Green: Kinds of hats
- 🟦 Blue: College Football team members
- 🟪 Purple: Go ____
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: Watch a little college football but don't go too crazy and lose your hat else you're need a cover.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #523?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Things that prevent leaks: Cap, cover, plug, seal
- 🟩 Kinds of hats: Beret, derby, pillbox, snapback
- 🟦 College football team members: Gator, Sooner, Volunteer, Wolverine
- 🟪 Go ____: Cap, cover, plug, seal
I was pressed for time today and jumped on a potential Marvel characters group to start. Strike one.
Moving on from there, I saw snapback and pillbox which I knew were hats, so just had to find beret and derby to round out the green quartet.
Gator (Florida) and Sooner (Oklahoma) struck out as college mascots which got us to Wolverine (Michigan) and Volunteer (Tennessee). I did take one strike trying to put Bananas in before Volunteer, but I was thinking of the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs.
I wasn't looking for the purple group but as I was reading the remaining 8 eight words, I said to myself "Go rogue" and that group clicked. From there we got to "Go bananas", "Go commando", and "Go Figure."
Which left the yellow category of things that prevent leaks with cap, cover, plug and seal.
Yesterday's Connections answers
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #523, which had a difficulty rating of 3 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
Maybe because it's Friday, or maybe it's a down week, but I was left quite cold by today's puzzle and was happy it was done even though nothing stuck out as egregiously bad, save the word fissure.
I do write for a living so phrase, sentence and word stuck out to me as grammar, not just elements of writing. Nothing else fit so letter was slotted in for the green group.
From there I took a strike putting hole, leak and puncture together with nick and not the correct crack for the yellow "fissure." Ugh. None of the first three words are fissures. Neither is a nick, but it's closer to what the other three mean. Also, don't just Google "fissure" without the word dictionary next to it when you're searching for the exact definition.
Anyway, jug, pipe, recorder and whistle stuck out to me as things you play.
Which left the nick of time, passage of time, sands of time and waste of time for the final fill. Perhaps I am being harsh today but today's puzzle felt like a waste of time. There was no joy in it for me. Some days are like that.
