NYT Connections today hints and answers — Tuesday, March 18 (#646)

NYTimes Connections
(Image credit: Future)

Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on March 17 for puzzle #645 are a full point harder than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 3 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, #645, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.

Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #646. 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

The New York Times Connections puzzle for March 18

(Image credit: New York Times)

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: Kinder, Dice, Singular, Die, Oxen, Special, Deer, Lice, Unique, Sheep, Squid, Angst, Mice, Wurst, Remarkable, and Shrimp.

If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:

  • 🟨 Yellow: Exceptional
  • 🟩 Green: German words
  • 🟦 Blue: Plural animals identical to their singular forms
  • 🟪 Purple: Plural words that are very different from their singular forms

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 hints: Practice your German and get your grammar books out for singular plurals.

Today's Connections answers

So, what are today's Connections answers for game #646?

Drumroll, please...

  • 🟨 Exceptional: Remarkable, singular, special, unique
  • 🟩 German words: Angst, die, kinder, wurst
  • 🟦 Plural animals identical to their singular forms: Deer, sheep, shrimp, squid
  • 🟪 Plural words that are very different from their singular forms: Dice, lice, mice, oxen

I found this puzzle very interesting with what it was doing with the categories. Especially once you kick out the green group, which is where I started.

I lived in Germany as a kid so I think of the German "kin-der" before I think of the English "kind-er" when I see that word. So I was thinking German, wurst and die were obvious to me from there. It did take a moment to find angst because I forgot that it's originally German.

The yellow group stuck out from the animals, so knocked that out with remarkable, singular, special and unique.

I knew what the blue and purple categories were doing but I took a moment because I was trying to guess which was blue and which purple.

I guessed wrong.

I grabbed, deer, sheep, shrimp and squid which was blue but the meaning is that the plural and single versions of the words are the same ala moose or fish.

Which left purple with words that are vastly different from their singular forms, meaning they don't just add an 'S.' We had dice, lice, mice, and oxen.

Yesterday's Connections answers

  • 🟨 Filament: Fiber, Strand, String, Thread
  • 🟩 Uninhibitedness: Abandon, Freedom, Spontaneity, Unrestraint
  • 🟦 Kinds of Trucks: Dump, Garbage, Monster, Pickup
  • 🟪 Bands minus the number five: Ben Folds, Jackson, Maroon, MC

Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #645, which had a difficulty rating of 2 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.

Today's puzzle was rated much easier than yesterday's, and it really felt like it. I blazed down the line, starting with the yellow category. It was easy enough to piece together with Fiber, Strand, String, and Thread.

I suspected Maroon and Jackson had something to do with the "five" missing from their names, but I didn't recognize any other bands so I put that on the back burner. Glancing around the remaining clues, I noticed a common definition among the words Abandon, Freedom, Spontaneity, and Unrestraint, which sealed the green category.

After that came blue, which was easy to pick up with Dump, Garbage, Monster, and...well... Pick-up.

That only left Jackson, Maroon, MC, and Ben Folds for the purple category as today's rote fill. I hadn't heard of the last two, so it's little wonder I didn't pick them out.

Scott Younker
West Coast Reporter

Scott Younker is the West Coast Reporter at Tom’s Guide. He covers all the lastest tech news. He’s been involved in tech since 2011 at various outlets and is on an ongoing hunt to build the easiest to use home media system. When not writing about the latest devices, you are more than welcome to discuss board games or disc golf with him. 

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.

Read more
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Monday, March 17 (#645)
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Sunday, March 16 (#644)
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Tuesday, January 28 (#597)
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Sunday, January 26 (#595)
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Saturday, March 1 (#629)
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Tuesday, March 11 (#639)
Latest in Gaming
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Tuesday, March 18 (#646)
NYT Strands on a cellphone
NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #380 (Tuesday, March 18 2025)
Nintendo Switch 2 console, Joy-Con controllers and dock
Nintendo Switch 2 release window and launch games leaked — here's what we know
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Monday, March 17 (#645)
NYT Strands on a cellphone
NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #379 (Monday, March 17 2025)
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Sunday, March 16 (#644)
Latest in News
3D printed model of alleged iPhone 17 Air design
iPhone 17 Air — these 5 big revelations have me excited for the first truly new iPhone in years
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Tuesday, March 18 (#646)
Igor
The Roku Channel is streaming one of my favorite kids' movies for free
A person on a laptop converting a PDF to a DOC
FBI issues warning over free online file converters that infect your PC with malware
The Find my People feature
Android Find My can now track your friends and family — here's how to use it
Foldable iPhone concept image
Are you sitting down? Here’s what the foldable iPhone could cost