NYT Connections today hints and answers — Wednesday, September 11 (#458)

NYTimes Connections
(Image credit: Future)

Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on September 10 for puzzle #458 jump in difficulty compared to yesterday's answers, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 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, #457, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.

Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #458. 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: Large amount of money
  • 🟩 Green: Bits of wisdom
  • 🟦 Blue: Featured in "Jurassic Park"
  • 🟪 Purple: Things that are purple

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: Jurassic Park. After that recall your inner Scrooge McDuck before exploring shades of purple and ending with a nugget of wisdom.

Today's Connections answers

So, what are today's Connections answers for game #458?

Drumroll, please...

  • 🟨 Large amount of money: Bundle, fortune, mint, pile
  • 🟩 Bits of wisdom: Amethyst, eggplant, grimace, lavender
  • 🟦 Featured in "Jurassic Park": Amber, dinosaur, mosquito, paleeontologist
  • 🟪 Things that are purple: Amethyst, eggplant, Grimace, lavender

After several days in a row with puzzles sitting at 3.3 difficulty, today took a leap straight into the fours. Does it match up to that difficulty?

Sort of. 

Much of today is based on idioms and slang, which if you don't know or haven't heard of can make it more difficult. Personally, I found today easier than yesterday.

Kicking it off, we had the yellow category with slang for a lot of money; bundle, fortune, mint and pile. 

It is appropriate that the purple category is full of purple hued items including amethyst, eggplant, Grimace (of McDonald's fame), and lavender.

I saw the blue connection while I was putting the purple category together and decided to save it for myself. Which meant digging up green for nuggets, pearls, kernels and tidbits of wisdom.

Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies of all time so it was a nice capper to the day with amber, dinosaur, mosquito and paleontologist.

The question with today's answers are if enough of these are common knowledge to make it the most difficulty puzzle of the week so far. 

Yesterday's Connections answers

Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #457, which had a difficulty rating of 3.3 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.

A weird run of the exact same difficulty grids continues with today's puzzle. 

I kicked today's puzzle off with the green category of transfers with deliver, give, hand and pass. It's a bit of a coin flip between that and yellow since I got yellow next with varieties: kinds, sorts, stripes and types. I saw green first, but you might see yellow.

From there, I was stumped a bit until a read A-F as A through F, which unlocked memories of school. Plus, I have a kid in school who at his age still gets stars on homework. Percentage and thumbs was a quick pick up from there.

Purple was the last filled with checkers, deck of cards, monarchy and NHL as things with Kings. It's a fun category. You always wish you caught the fun ones earlier. 

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. 

Read more
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Friday, February 28 (#628)
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Wednesday, February 26 (#626)
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Thursday, February 6 (#606)
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Friday, January 10 (#579)
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Monday, December 30 (#568)
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Sunday, January 19 (#588)
Latest in Gaming
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Thursday, March 13 (#641)
NYT Strands on a cellphone
NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #375 (Thursday, March 13 2025)
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Wednesday, March 12 (#640)
Switch 2 console and logo
New Nintendo patent teases a big upgrade for Switch 2 — here's what we know
Horizon Forbidden West on PC
AI-powered PlayStation characters are being tested at Sony — what we know
NYT Strands on a cellphone
NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #374 (Wednesday, March 12 2025)
Latest in News
Sonos logo on a smart speaker
Sonos halts work on rumored super streaming device — what's next?
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Thursday, March 13 (#641)
HomePod with display concept render
Apple HomePod with display now rumored for late 2025 launch
The Apple Watch Series 10 on display at the device's launch in September 2024
Apple Watch sales plummet 19% as smartwatch market declines for first time
Google's Project Astra working on prototype smartglasses in an advertisement
Google just acquired this eye tracking company — hinting at the return of Google glasses
iPhone 17 Air render
iPhone 17 Air could be just 5.5mm thick — but 9.5mm when you throw in the camera bump