Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on January 5 for puzzle #574 is 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, #573, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #574. 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: Stop, Gross, Make, Home, Yield, Volume, Slow, Snare, Quiet, Kettle, Net, Mute, Ear, Sleepy, Oil, Calm
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Hardly bustling
- 🟩 Green: Earn
- 🟦 Blue: Remote control functions
- 🟪 Purple: Words before "drum"
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: Whether you're tackling your watchlist, New Year's resolutions, or mid-day errands, make sure to drum up some connections.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #574?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Hardly bustling: Calm, Quiet, Sleepy, Slow
- 🟩 Earn: Gross, Make, Net, Yield
- 🟦 Remote control functions: Home, Mute, Stop, Volume
- 🟪 Words before "drum": Ear, Kettle, Oil, Snare
As you might expect, based on the lower rating, this puzzle was a breeze. There are only so many definitions I know for Gross, and with no synonyms for "icky" in sight, I started looking around for economic terms, quickly picking up Make, Net, and Yield to round out the green category.
Snare and Sleepy were the clear outliers for me in today's puzzle. Unable to spot any other names of the seven dwarves, I pivoted to Snare, which something told me had to do with drums (or at the very least, I had zero clue what else it could be if that wasn't the case). That led me to Ear, Kettle, and Oil, cinching the hardest category.
Coincidentally, the easiest category came next when I returned to Sleepy and realized it shared a similar definition with the likes of Calm, Quiet, and Slow.
That left only Home, Mute, Stop, and Volume, and the connection was instantly clear given that I celebrated the holidays with my fair share of binge-watching with family and friends.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Crush into a compact shape: Ball, Crumple, Scrunch, Wad
- 🟩 Fasteners: Buckle, Clip, Hook, Snap
- 🟦 Mark as completed: Check, Cross, Strike, Tick
- 🟪 Depicted in Dali's "The Persistence of Memory": Ant, Branch, Clock, Melting
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #573, which had a difficulty rating of 3 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
It's out with the old and in with the new, and all that New Year cleaning is likely why I kicked off the puzzle by quickly scooping up Ball, Crumple, Scrunch, and Wad to complete the yellow category.
Solving the easiest category right off the bat is always a bit stressful because it means things are only going to get harder from here, but luckily the others came easily enough. Like most of y'all out there I've been steadily tackling my New Year's Resolutions (or trying to, at any rate), so it was easy to spot the blue category: Check, Cross, Strike, and Tick.
After that came green with a variety of fasteners that I had to help my young nieces and nephews navigate over the holidays: Buckle, Clip, Hook, and Snap.
That left purple (Ant, Branch, Clock, Melting) as the rote fill, which was a doozy with such a specific reference. Between Melting and Clock I got the sense it had something to do with the famed Spanish surrealist, but if you asked me to name a piece by him, I'd come up empty.
