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Today's puzzle is pretty easy with few hoops to jump through.
Find our guide to New York Times Connections answers and hints for June 16 below.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #1,101. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #1,100, 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
- Black Swan
- Earrings
- Basketball
- Court
- Green Goddess
- Suite
- Unicorn
- Ranch
- Blue Moon
- Blue Cheese
- Red Tape
- Perfect Storm
- Rhythmic Gymnastics Gear
- Entourage
- Caesar
- Retinue
We have the Connections categories below but here's a hint without the actual titles. Try this out:
- 🟨 Yellow: Green covering
- 🟩 Green: Pals
- 🟦 Blue: Flying pigs
- 🟪 Purple: Circular
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: Creamy salad dressings
- 🟩 Green: Attendants
- 🟦 Blue: Rare things, idiomatically
- 🟪 Purple: What "hoops" might refer to
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 June 16 for puzzle #1,101 are the same difficulty as yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2 out of 5.
- 🟨 Creamy salad dressings: Blue cheese, caesar, green goddess, ranch
- 🟩 Attendants: Court, entourage, retinue, suite
- 🟦 Rare things, idiomatically: Black swan, blue moon, perfect storm, unicorn
- 🟪 What "hoops" might refer to: Basketball, earrings, red tape, rhythmic gymnastics gear
Phrases is how I got into today's puzzle, starting with once in a blue moon. This led me to unicorn, perfect storm, and black swan.
Jump through hoops landed me red tape, which got me to black swan, earrings, and rhythmic gymnastics gear.
Green goddess put me onto salad dressings with blue cheese, caesar, and ranch.
Which left court, entourage, retinue and suite as my final four.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Staying power: Legs, momentum, stamina, traction
- 🟩 Get ready for a night out: Accessorize, change, primp, shower
- 🟦 Chinese zodiac animals: Dog, dragon, horse, snake
- 🟪 Flowers: Anemone, larkspur, monkshood, phlox
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1,100, which had a difficulty rating of 2 out of 5.
I've been getting into gardening since buying a house, and I was excited to recognize Phlox and Larkspur from those efforts. I still don't know what Monkshood is, but of the remaining clues, it seemed the most flower-like. After striking out with a few other guesses for flora, I scored purple with Anemone.
After that I went to the opposite end of the difficulty spectrum with a quartet of synonyms for yellow: legs, momentum, stamina, and traction.
Moving on to blue, I was a huge fan of Fruits Basket growing up so I'm honestly surprised I didn't get this one first. But with only eight clues left, I realized all the animal ones, mythical or otherwise — dragon, dog, horse, and snake — were members of the Chinese zodiac.
That left green as today's rote fill with accessorize, change, primp, and shower.
