Today's puzzle asks us to go back to school for some wisdom.
Find our guide to New York Times Connections answers and hints for July 29 below.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #1,144. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #1,143, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Alternatively, visit our how to play NYT Connections guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.
What 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
- Cork
- Pearl
- Basic
- Staple
- Mid
- Word
- Chalk
- White
- Black
- Vanilla
- Gem
- Nail
- Rivet
- Nugget
- Screw
- Plain
We have the Connections categories below, but here's a hint without the actual titles. Try this out:
- 🟨 Yellow: Toolbox
- 🟩 Green: Meh
- 🟦 Blue: Sagacity
- 🟪 Purple: School
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: Fasteners
- 🟩 Green: Nondescript
- 🟦 Blue: Units of wisdom
- 🟪 Purple: ____boards in a classroom
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 July 29 for puzzle #1,144 are a bit harder than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2 out of 5.
- 🟨 Fasteners: Nail, rivet, screw, staple
- 🟩 Nondescript: Basic, mid, plain, vanilla
- 🟦 Units of wisdom: Gem, nugget, pearl, word
- 🟪 ____boards in a classroom: Black, chalk, cork, white
I started today chasing boards when I saw cork. Black and chalk followed quickly, and it took a second for white to reveal itself.
I guessed that the fasteners set was green with nail, rivet, pearl, and word, but got it wrong.
Somehow this got the 'of wisdom' to click with gem, nugget, pearl and word.
Which left basic, mid, plain, and vanilla as the final four.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Command: Captain, direct, head, lead
- 🟩 How do you like them apples: Empire, fuji, gala, honeycrisp
- 🟦 Shoe brands with "C": Camper, clarks, converse, crocs
- 🟪 Starting with palindromic names: Annapolis, bobsled, everest, ottoman
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1,143, which had a difficulty rating of 1.7 out of 5.
I saw the Apples and Shoes first but assumed the Apples were the yellow set so I popped in converse, crocs, clarks and camper for the early blue.
I continued to ignore the apples in favor of the names with Annapolis, Bobsled, Everest, and Ottoman.
Now, I finally put in the Apples of fuji, gala, honeycrisp and empire.
Which made yellow lead from the back with captain, direct, head, and lead.
