Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on July 19 for puzzle #404 take a slight decrease in difficulty compared to yesterday's answers, 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. 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, #403, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #404. 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: Romantic partner
- 🟩 Green: Insult
- 🟦 Blue: Gas pump options
- 🟪 Purple: ____ Table
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:
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #404?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Romantic partner: Flame, lover, steady, sweetheart
- 🟩 Insult: Burn, dig, jab, slight
- 🟦 Gas pump options: Diesel, plus, premium, regular
- 🟪 ____ Table: Coffee, periodic, pool, water
I literally filled up my car yesterday and maybe that was on the mind, but I got the blue category right away. Diesel, plus, premium and regular are all tiers of gas that you can get gouged for at the pump.
The yellow category took longer than it should have, but I blame the word "steady" for this. I had flame, lover, and sweetheart and couldn't see any other connections for those words to try and shift my focus. I don't think anyone has ever said, "This person is my steady." You "go steady". It doesn't work, and I wish they had found another word like beau or or boo.
From there I found all the insulting words. Burn, dig and jab jumped out right away. Slight is correct here but it feels too passive compared to the other three. Again, another word would have been more fun. I would have taken slam or roast, as examples.
A personal goal of mine is to try and get the purple category before the end of the grid. So it was disappointing personally that I didn't do that, but today's purple category is a fun one with words followed by table. Pool, water, periodic and coffee. Sometimes you just don't see it but it was a neat little reveal when I wrapped the puzzle up.
Yesterday's Connections answers
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #403, which had a difficulty rating of 3.2 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
Surprisingly, today's puzzle, despite being rated far more difficult went fairly quick for me.
I found the yellow category first with plaza, square and court. I didn't see yard so I tried round first. Strike one for me. The mistake was fixed immediately. Though I thought round would have really fit nicely if they did this one again.
I wasn't thinking of boxing when I did the green category, though that makes sense in the context of the words. For me, those four words; bout, contest, match and round have all become common sports nomenclature. Still, it worked.
Did I take two strikes in a row trying to make fire and sparkles fit with dazzle, flash, pomp and ritz? Yes, yes I did. I still think sparkles was the more obvious choice (for a totally different category; perhaps, fireworks), but that's me being obstinate.
If you follow these blogs, no, the purple category did not induce irritation as yesterday's poorly thought out grouping did.
It's fine. I don't really use emojis beyond the occasional smiley face or thumbs up to acknowledge something quickly. Sometimes the purple category just needs to be eliminated by process and today is one of those days.
