Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on January 21 for puzzle #590 drops in difficulty compared to 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, #589, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #590. 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: Miniature, Octopus, Crack, Pepper, Slight, Salt, Dig, Sand, Doll, Who, Shovel, Figure, Plow, Barb, Model and No.
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Putdown
- 🟩 Green: Small likeness
- 🟦 Blue: Used to clear snow
- 🟪 Purple: Doctors in pop culture
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: Brave the cold, a few insults and nonmedical doctors for an action figure.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #590?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Putdown: Barb, crack, dig, slight
- 🟩 Small likeness: Doll, figure, miniature, model
- 🟦 Used to clear snow: Plow, salt, sand, shovel
- 🟪 Doctors in pop culture: No, Octopus, Pepper, Who
After three straight days of level 3 rated puzzles, Connections gave us a little break with today's level 2 rated one.
I kicked things off with the green category have seen figure and miniature, it made me think of boardgames and the mini-madness that has taken over Kickstarted games in the last few years. That's a rant for another day. Anyway, model and doll were sensible picks from there.
I saw crack and thought insult which led to barb, dig and slight.
With the last eight, Dr. Who leapt out to me so I went looking for PHD docs and got Dr. No, Doc Ock and Dr. Pepper.
Which left snow plows, salt, sand and shovel for the blue group.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Take on, as a responsibility: Assume, Bear, Handle, Shoulder
- 🟩 Corners: Angle, Bend, Crook, Elbow
- 🟦 Associated with Popeye: Anchor, Forearm, Pipe, Spinach
- 🟪 ___ sheet: Balance, Cheat, Cookie, Fitted
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #589, which had a difficulty rating of 3 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
The Connections Crew is on a three-day streak with these level 3 puzzles. Starting off with the green category, it was tricky to puzzle out amid all the other handyman words thrown in there but Angle, Bend, Crook, and Elbow had specificity in common, which singled them out.
After that came the yellow category with Assume, Bear, Handle, Shoulder.
I was pretty clueless for a bit trying to figure out the last two categories. But something about Spinach finally clued me into what they were going for with the blue category, and I quickly nabbed Anchor, Forearm, and Pipe along with it.
That left the purple category as today's rote fill with Balance, Cheat, Cookie, and Fitted — a deceptively simple category that nonetheless had me stumped until the connection was revealed.
