Looking for some Connections hints to help with today’s puzzle on Thursday, 22nd January? It’s certainly a tough challenge, this Connections puzzle, but your theme-finding first aid has arrived. It’s lucky when your brain just makes an instant connection between four Connections words, but since that’s unlikely to happen every day, this guide will provide some much-needed hints.
Let’s boost your chances of finding the secret themes today!
In this guide:
How to play Connections
Connections is one of the most popular (and challenging) daily puzzle games published by the New York Times (owners of Wordle). The aim of Connections is to group the 16 words of the day into four groups, where each group of four words has a common theme.
For instance, the words “Hook”, “Nana”, “Peter”, and “Wendy” are all Peter Pan characters. Or to take another example, “Action”, “Ballpark”, “Go”, and “Stick” are all words which commonly come just before the word “Figure”. These are the kinds of Connections you’ll need to make to solve the puzzle.
Your job is to figure out what these themes are that connect the various words together – but be wary, because a lot of the time there are deceptive red herring connections placed purely to throw you off! To win the game, you have to find all four Connections without making 4 mistakes. On your fourth mistake, the game is over and the answer is revealed automatically.
Each of the four groups in each day’s Connections puzzle is also assigned a different colour, which represents how easy or difficult the Connection is to find. These colours are: Yellow (Easiest), Green (Easy), Blue (Medium), and Purple (Hardest).
Click here to play today’s Connections puzzle!
Connections hint: Today’s Connections words
Below you’ll find various hints for today’s Connections. Each of the below hints will make it progressively easier for you to solve today’s puzzle. First we’ll reveal the words in today’s Connections, followed by our Connections hint for each group. Then we’ll reveal one word inside each group, followed by the groups themselves; and finally, at the bottom of this page, we’ll reveal the answers to today’s Connections puzzle. Here are the 16 Connections words for today:
- DISTINCT
- TURNOVER
- CLEAR
- COBBLER
- CRISP
- CRUMBLE
- ELLEN
- FLUFF
- FUMBLE
- MISS
- SHARP
- SPINY
- STRUDEL
- TIMER
- TRIP
- USE
Connections hint for Thursday 22nd January
Here are your Connections hints for today:
- Yellow: If you can read the letters well, they are […]
- Green: Can you eat it?
- Blue: Doing something incorrectly.
- Purple: Remove something.
- Extra hint 1: Every group except yellow contains a word starting with a “T”.
- Extra hint 2: Every group except blue contains a word starting with an “S”.
If you need a bit more help, tap the spoiler text below to reveal one word belonging to each group:
- Yellow: Distinct
- Green: Strudel
- Blue: Fluff
- Purple: Timer
Spoiler warning! Today’s Connections groups are revealed just below!
Connections hints: All of today’s Connections groups
If you need an even bigger clue to figure out today’s Connections puzzle, below we’ll reveal the four correct Connections groups – the themes which link together each set of four words in the Connections grid.
Here are the Connections groups for today:
- Yellow: Well-defined, As An Image
- Green: Fruit Desserts
- Blue: Bungle
- Purple: Magazines Plus A Letter
Now that you know the themes for the various different Connections in today’s puzzle, see if you can solve it! If not, check below for the full answer.
Spoiler warning! Today’s Connections answer lies ahead!
Connections answer today
Here is the answer to today’s Connections puzzle on Thursday, 22nd January:
- Yellow: Well-defined, As An Image (Clear, Crisp, Distinct, Sharp)
- Green: Fruit Desserts (Cobbler, Crumble, Strudel, Turnover)
- Blue: Bungle (Fluff, Fumble, Miss, Trip)
- Purple: Magazines Plus A Letter (Ellen, Spiny, Timer, Use)
Partly thanks to their visual similarity, “clear” and “crisp” stood out to me today, so it wasn’t hard to complete the yellow theme from there. The blue theme didn’t pose significant problems either; I would’ve had a harder time if the theme name was swapped with “fumble” or “miss”, probably.
What did cause trouble, however, was the dessert theme. I know apfelstrudel and apple crumble, but apple turnover and apple cobbler aren’t on my personal daily menu. I’ve got this sensation that at least “cobbler” has been in a previous Connections puzzle, and I believe I struggled then, too. Also, they could’ve called this an “apple desserts” theme instead of “fruit desserts”, right?
That’s not to say I didn’t find the green theme; with only six possible fruit desserts to choose from, it was clear to me that “cobbler” and “turnover” were far more likely candidates than “apple timer” or “apple spiny”.
Congratulations if you got today’s Connections answer right, with or without the help of our handy hints above! And if you didn’t succeed today, don’t worry – a new Connections puzzle is released every day at midnight, so you can try again tomorrow, just like with Wordle!