Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on September 28 for puzzle #475 is one of the hardest puzzles we've seen in a while, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 4.2 out of 5.
Every day, we update this article with Connections hints and tips to help you find all 4 of today's answers. 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, #474, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #475. 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: Composite
- 🟩 Green: Embed
- 🟦 Blue: Items in a Monopoly box
- 🟪 Purple: _____ control
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: Play a game of monopoly while you append control to a few words, and then embed them in a blend.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #475?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Composite: Blend, compound, cross, hybrid
- 🟩 Embed: Lodge, plant, stick, wedge
- 🟦 Items in a Monopoly box: Deed, hotel, house, token
- 🟪 _____ Control: Birth, cruise, quality, remote
Well, after yesterday's breezy 3.6 breeze, today's 4.2 lived up to the number.
It took some time but I started with yellow grabbing hybrid and cross which led to blend. I didn't like compound for the group but I was still reeling a bit from an early strike when I tried hotel, house, cruise and compound with the idea being vacation rentals. So, I kept it for the correct answer.
One nice thing about purple is that a surprising number of the hardest grouping categories are just ____ [word] or [word] ____.
Sometimes if you're stuck try adding a word or creating a phrase and you'll probably find purple. That's how I got today's. At some point, I got to cruise control (especially since cruise ship was clearly out) and the other three words clicked quickly from there with birth, quality and remote.
I still wasn't sure between the last two but lodge, plant, stick and wedge seemed the safer bet, which was correct. Though I was still in a buildings mindset as I considered lodge and plant.
Thus, I ended today with the blue category of hotel, house, deed and token for things in a Monopoly box. I'm not sure I would have ever organically gotten there. An infamous story in my family is the time I decided I was done with that terrible game and just "retired" in the middle by selling off all my properties and items and then moving my token to the middle of the board. I recommend it.
Yesterday's Connections answers
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #473, which had a difficulty rating of 3.6 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
Today's grid really makes me curious about how the weight of these puzzles are determined. Yesterday's 2.6 was a boondoggle for me, but I could see others breezing through it.
Today, I smashed it and even went backwards. So, does not knowing Sci-Fi movies make it a 3.6 or is the tricks-y words that could be in different categories together? I'm not sure.
I saw Matrix, Dune and Gravity right off the bat. Took a couple of strikes making it work but I knew Sci-Fi something was there. Seeing Thing and Fly clicked "The" and we were able to get The Abyss, The Fly, The Matrix and The Thing, all great movies.
I didn't take a strike but I was looking at bank, draft, and import and trade for a potential banking category. It didn't quite fit and felt forced. But then I noticed mound and was thinking baseball, which led me to bench and start next to each other, which led to trade and draft. Thus, fantasy sports. I was thinking regular sports, but we'll take it.
Then the green category fell into place with gravity, import, substance and weight.
Finally, we ended with an "area of high ground" in bank, dune, hill and mound.
No staring blankly at the grid today, which was a relief.
