NYT Connections today hints and answers — Sunday, September 1 (#448)

NYTimes Connections
(Image credit: Future)

Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on September 1 for puzzle #448 are a bit more difficult compared to yesterday's answers, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 3.4 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, #447, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.

Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #448. 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: Cook in a pan
  • 🟩 Green: Parts of the ear
  • 🟦 Blue: Shades of black
  • 🟪 Purple: Where you might find "a driver" 

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: If you have an eye for art, an ear for music, or a stomach for BBQ, today's puzzle should be easy. 

Today's Connections answers

So, what are today's Connections answers for game #448?

Drumroll, please...

  • 🟨 Cook in a pan: Brown, char, grill, sear
  • 🟩 Parts of the ear: Anvil, canal, drum, hammer
  • 🟦 Shades of black: Charcoal, jet, raven, sable
  • 🟪 Where you might find "a driver": Golf bag, limousine, movie set, toolbox

When it comes to solving Connections puzzles, snagging the yellow category first can be a double-edged sword because there it only gets more difficult from here and there isn't a category to fall back on. My stomach must have been doing the talking today because I clocked Sear, Grill, Char, and Grill immediately. 

I found the blue category next, starting with Charcoal and Raven as both things that are black and eventually stumbling into Jet and Sable after a few strikes. 

Next came the green category. I was familiar with the ear Canal and ear Drum, but Hammer and Anvil are new to me. But they made more sense than any of the answers for the Purple category, so I figured they were worth a shot and I got lucky. 

Purple became a rote fill after that, which was good for me because I had zero clue how Golf Bag, Limousine, Movie Set and Toolbox were connected. 

Yesterday's Connections answers

Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #447, which had a difficulty rating of 2.9 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.

Friday's 3.9 was one of the hardest puzzles in awhile but it was finishable. Saturday's dropped down to 2.9 and I found myself struggling. 

To start, we got salad types with Chef, garden, Greek and wedge, which feels like a yellow or green but was rated blue.

I found the green category next with bark, crown, rings and roots which make up trees. 

This opened up to the yellow category of newspaper sections with arts, business, comics and sports. Perhaps its embarrassing that I didn't see that having written for newspapers and regularly following industry. Ah well.

I spent much my time with this puzzle trying to figure Monticello and it just wasn't clicking why Thomas Jefferson's slave plantation was on here. Turns out its one of the symbols on the back of U.S. coins, adding eagle, shield and torch.

Alyse Stanley
News Editor

Alyse Stanley is a news editor at Tom’s Guide overseeing weekend coverage and writing about the latest in tech, gaming and entertainment. Prior to joining Tom’s Guide, Alyse worked as an editor for the Washington Post’s sunsetted video game section, Launcher. She previously led Gizmodo’s weekend news desk, where she covered breaking tech news — everything from the latest spec rumors and gadget launches to social media policy and cybersecurity threats.  She has also written game reviews and features as a freelance reporter for outlets like Polygon, Unwinnable, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun. She’s a big fan of horror movies, cartoons, and miniature painting.