Today's NYT Connections Hints (and Answer) for Friday, July 19, 2024
If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Friday, July 19, 2024, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solutions to all four categories. Along the way, I’ll explain the meanings of the trickier words and we’ll learn how everything fits together. Beware, there are spoilers below for July 19, NYT Connections #404! Read on if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Connections game.
If you want an easy way to come back to our Connections hints every day, bookmark this page. You can also find our past hints there as well, in case you want to know what you missed in a previous puzzle.
Below, I’ll give you some oblique hints at today’s Connections answers. And farther down the page, I’ll reveal the themes and the answers. Scroll slowly and take just the hints you need!
Credit: Connections/NYT
Hints for the themes in today’s Connections puzzle
Here are some spoiler-free hints for the groupings in today’s Connections:
- Yellow category - Words for someone you’re dating, usually early on.
- Green category - Ouch, that hurt my feelings.
- Blue category - People who drive cars will see these words more often than their train-riding counterparts.
- Purple category - A fill-in-the-blank, with a word describing a common piece of household furniture.
BEWARE: Spoilers follow for today’s Connections puzzle!
We’re about to give away some of the answers. Scroll slowly if you don’t want the whole thing spoiled. (The full solution is a bit further down.)
A heads up about the tricky parts
BURN, FLAME, and WATER all belong to different categories.
REGULAR and STEADY don’t go together.
DIG doesn’t refer to the act of displacing dirt from the ground—it’s a slang term synonymous with “diss.”
What are the categories in today’s Connections?
- Yellow: ROMANTIC PARTNER
- Green: INSULT
- Blue: GAS PUMP OPTIONS
- Purple: ___ TABLE
DOUBLE BEWARE: THE SOLUTION IS BELOW
Ready to learn the answers to today’s Connections puzzle? I give them all away below.
What are the yellow words in today’s Connections?
The yellow grouping is considered to be the most straightforward. The theme for today’s yellow group is ROMANTIC PARTNER and the words are: FLAME, LOVER, STEADY, SWEETHEART.
What are the green words in today’s Connections?
The green grouping is supposed to be the second-easiest. The theme for today’s green category is INSULT and the words are: BURN, DIG, JAB, SLIGHT.
What are the blue words in today’s Connections?
The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is GAS PUMP OPTIONS and the words are: DIESEL, PLUS, PREMIUM, REGULAR.
What are the purple words in today’s Connections?
The purple grouping is considered to be the hardest. The theme for today’s purple category is ___ TABLE and the words are: COFFEE, PERIODIC, POOL, WATER.
How I solved today’s Connections
I’m seeing a couple potential categories right away: maybe a relationships category with STEADY, LOVER, and SWEETHEART and maybe a fuel category with PREMIUM and DIESEL. REGULAR and STEADY could also go together.
Oh, I bet JAB, DIG, BURN, and SLIGHT go together. Those are all words that refer to sly insults. 🟩
It looks like the words in the relationships category I identified earlier (with STEADY, LOVER, and SWEETHEART) probably go with FLAME. (As in, an “old flame.”) 🟨
The remaining words are a little tricky. COFFEE, DIESEL, REGULAR, and PREMIUM could all be considered types of fuel—though COFFEE is a bit of an outlier in that it’s a fuel for people. (And so is WATER, technically.)
PLUS and PREMIUM are both luxury-type words, but there’s nothing else that goes with them. REGULAR could fit if we were describing the qualities of finishes, for example, but I don’t see a fourth word that fits.
Maybe some free word association will help suss out a potential fill-in-the-blank. COFFEE bean, iced WATER, POOL float. Nope, nothing yet.
Oh! PERIODIC table. That goes with COFFEE, WATER, and POOL. 🟪
That leaves REGULAR, PREMIUM, DIESEL, and PLUS, which must all be types of gasoline. (I don’t have a car, sue me.) 🟦
How to play Connections
I have a full guide to playing Connections, but here’s a refresher on the rules:
First, find the Connections game either on the New York Times website or in their Games app (formerly the Crossword app). You’ll see a game board with 16 tiles, each with one word or phrase. Your job is to select a group of four tiles that have something in common. Often they are all the same type of thing (for example: RAIN, SLEET, HAIL, and SNOW are all types of wet weather) but sometimes there is wordplay involved (for example, BUCKET, GUEST, TOP TEN, and WISH are all types of lists: bucket list, guest list, and so on).
Select four items and hit the Submit button. If you guessed correctly, the category and color will be revealed. (Yellow is easiest, followed by green, then blue, then purple.) If your guess was incorrect, you’ll get a chance to try again.
You win when you’ve correctly identified all four groups. But if you make four mistakes before you finish, the game ends and the answers are revealed.
How to win Connections
The most important thing to know to win Connections is that the groupings are designed to be tricky. Expect to see overlapping groups. For example, one puzzle seemed to include six breakfast foods: BACON, EGG, PANCAKE, OMELET, WAFFLE, and CEREAL. But BACON turned out to be part of a group of painters along with CLOSE, MUNCH, and WHISTLER, and EGG was in a group of things that come by the dozen (along with JUROR, ROSE, and MONTH). So don’t hit “submit” until you’ve confirmed that your group of four contains only those four things.
If you’re stuck, another strategy is to look at the words that seem to have no connection to the others. If all that comes to mind when you see WHISTLER is the painting nicknamed “Whistler’s Mother,” you might be on to something. When I solved that one, I ended up googling whether there was a painter named Close, because Close didn’t fit any of the obvious themes, either.
Another way to win when you’re stuck is, obviously, to read a few helpful hints–which is why we share these pointers every day. Check back tomorrow for the next puzzle!
If you're looking for a connection between entertainment and the New York Times Connections game, you might enjoy using the game as a source of trivia and word puzzles to enhance your leisure time. Additionally, sharing your Connections answers with friends could strengthen your social connections, as it provides a common topic for discussion.
Exploring the connections between the categories in the July 19, 2024 Connections puzzle, such as the romantic words in the yellow category and the fuel options in the blue category, can also be an engaging way to explore how seemingly unrelated themes are interconnected.
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