NYT ‘Connections' Hints For Wednesday, August 20: Today's Clues And Answers
It's Wednesday, and you know what that means: it's time for another round of Connections!
In my line of work, I often find out about new tech- or games-related announcements before they're made public. I agree to an embargo (or one of my colleagues does) and those involved share the information so we can hopefully have some coverage ready to publish at an agreed time.
In a similar vein, game developers and publishers also often share copies of their projects in advance to help with reviews and guides coverage. I always appreciate that, even though it's impossible for me to try every game that comes my way.
Sometimes, I get an advance copy of a game that hits the sweet spot and I can't wait to tell people about it. That's happened a few times recently, including with one upcoming game I'm looking forward to talking about. I'm not complaining in the slightest, though I do have to keep things to myself for a while.
Situations like this often make me think about the other side of things, with actors, developers and other creatives who are involved in huge movies or games. In such cases, these people will have signed non-disclosure agreements that prevent them from discussing details until they're made public.
I wonder how often it's happened that someone involved in a major project has been out for drinks with friends, gotten a bit inebriated and gotten overly chatty about what they're working on. That can't be great for them!
Before we begin, we have a great little community on Discord, where we chat about NYT Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It's a fun hangout spot, and you're more than welcome to hang out with us.
Discord is also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare (or not-so-rare) occasions that I mess something up. I don't look at the comments or Twitter much. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my new newsletter, Pastimes.
Today's NYT Connections hints and answers for Wednesday, August 20 are coming right up.
How To Play Connections
Connections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on the NYT's website or Games app.
You're presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by figuring out the links between them. The groups could be things like items you can click, names for research study participants or words preceded by a body part.
There's only one solution for each puzzle, and you'll need to be careful when it comes to words that might fit into more than one category. You can shuffle the words to perhaps help you see links between them.
Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is usually the most difficult one. The purple group often involves wordplay.
Select four words you think go together and press Submit. If you make a guess and you're incorrect, you'll lose a life. If you're close to having a correct group, you might see a message telling you that you're one word away from getting it right, but you'll still need to figure out which one to swap.
If you make four mistakes, it's game over. Let's make sure that doesn't happen with the help of some hints, and, if you're really struggling, today's Connections answers. As with Wordle and other similar games, it's easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats.
If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the publication's Connections archive. This includes every previous game of Connections, so you can go back and play any of those that you have missed.
Aside from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find our hints Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query.
What Are Today's Connections Hints?
Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today's Connections groups, I'll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.
Today's 16 words are...
And the hints for today's Connections groups are:
One Word For Each Connections Group
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we're starting to get into spoiler territory.
Let's take a look at one word for each group.
Today's Connections word hints are…
What Are Today's Connections Groups?
Today's Connections groups are...
What Are Today's Connections Answers?
Spoiler alert! Don't scroll any further down the page until you're ready to find out today's Connections answers.
This is your final warning!
Today's Connections answers are...
So there's the fun, slightly gimmicky puzzle I was expecting yesterday for game #800! Lots of longer phrases here.
At first, I suspected that CANDY CANE, BARBER POLE, CAROUSEL and ZEBRA would go together, as in a bunch of striped things. But as I looked at CROCHET HOOK, CROOK and CROWBAR, I realized CANDY CANE made sense with those. I was surprised to see they were the purples!
YIN-YANG SYMBOL and DOMINO made the yellows clear. I figured that CHOPSTICKS, KNITTING NEEDLES and SKI POLES would fit together as a group of long, pointy things, but I wasn't sure what would go with them.
I realized that four of the five other words/phrases were things that turn. I didn't really know what CLAVES were (a percussion instrument comprising two wooden sticks that one strikes together) but I got lucky with the greens anyway.
That left the blues to give me my 173rd victory in a row, and with a perfect game. I don't think it was too difficult, but the purples and greens were a little tricky (and figuring out which color each category is could be tough for reverse rainbow-seekers!). Here's my grid for today:
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
That's all there is to it for today's Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Thursday's game if you need them.
P.S. As I was doing a little work on Saturday, I fired up YouTube to find some background noise. I was pleasantly surprised to see that a livestream of a Queens of the Stone Age set at a festival in France had just started. Being that they're a top-three band of all time for me, of course I had to fire that up.
QOTSA opened their set with "No One Knows," arguably their most popular song. It's a hell of a flex for a band to do such a thing. Immediately after that, they played "The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret." That might be my favorite QOTSA song. It's catchy and crystallizes the sultry and menacing vibe of the band (and somehow makes me think of Scooby-Doo). That's a mighty impressive one-two punch, so I'm gonna deliver the same thing for you here:
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!
Please follow my blog for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Sharing this column with other people who play Connections would be appreciated too. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my new newsletter, Pastimes.
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