Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on December 31 for puzzle #569 is slightly easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2.8 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, #568, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #569. 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: Ball, Drop, Dart, Game, Attention, Dear, Brand, Names, Thrill, For, Fly, Blast, Bolt, Kick, To, Dash
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Move Quickly
- 🟩 Green: Fun time
- 🟦 Blue: Words before an addressee
- 🟪 Purple: Name _____
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: Hurry! We're going to have some fun. But read the invitation addressed to you and think about what comes after the name.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #569?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Move Quickly: Bolt, Dart, Dash, Fly
- 🟩 Fun time: Ball, Blast, Kick, Thrill
- 🟦 Words before an addressee: Attention, Dear, For, To
- 🟪 Name ____: Brand, Drop, Game, Names
I found today's puzzle to be exceedingly difficult, but after a few shuffles, I put together the speed element for the yellow clues.
I got a little hung up on the second one, piecing together fun things. I saw Ball, Blast and Thrill, but I'd never considered the word Kick to mean to have a fun time. Luckily, after a mistake, I guessed Kick to lock down the green category.
Left with eight choices and two categories, I had to dig in and get the brain flowing to find connections. After several shuffles, I spotted the connection to ways to start a letter and was correct, leaving only the final four.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Lunch Orders: Club, Hero, Melt, Wrap
- 🟩 Used to make coffee: Beans, filter, grinder, water
- 🟦 Pay, with "up": Ante, cough, pony, settle
- 🟪 Names featuring "!": Airplane, Jeopardy, Pink, Yahoo
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #568, which had a difficulty rating of 3.3 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
I was hungry when I started today's puzzle and immediately clocked sandwiches with hero, melt, wrap and initially I put grinder. Strike one. Swapped out wrap for club. Strike 2.
Finally, looked around a bit more and made the coffee connections with beans, filter, grinder and water. Then we went back for the sandos.
Which left me staring at ante and settle, which had me thinking poker. I made the connection to pony and was stuck a minute before finally seeing cough for what it was.
Which left the final group of things with ! in the name. Airplane, Jeopardy, P!nk and Yahoo. I actually had the right idea for all four but was not making the punctuation connection, which is partly why they lasted to so long.
