Friday is finally here, and so is another Connections puzzle for you to solve.
In the wake of the phenomenal success of the word-based game Wordle, The New York Times introduced Connections in 2023. This new puzzle has rapidly garnered a dedicated global fanbase, with players eagerly discussing strategies and sharing their daily results on social media.
Connections can be quite challenging, so if you need a little help, Newsweek is here to assist you. The answers to today’s puzzle are at the bottom of this article, so proceed with caution if you prefer to solve it on your own.
How to Play ‘Connections’
Every day, Connections presents players with a grid of 16 words. The objective is to organize these words into four groups of four, based on shared themes or characteristics. For example, Thursday’s game linked the words “Hype,” “Market,” “Pitch” and “Sell” in the category “Promote.”
Each of the four categories is labeled with a color, which also signifies their difficulty level. Yellow is the easiest category, followed by green, blue and then purple. However, the puzzles are rarely straightforward, using homophones and wordplay, among other techniques, to keep things interesting.
Sometimes, a red herring is thrown in to confuse people, which is when a word can belong to more than one category but there is only one correct answer. If stuck, people can hit the shuffle button, which will mix up where the words appear on the screen.
Wyna Liu is a puzzle editor at The New York Times who was asked to develop Connections. During a conversation with Newsweek, she shared her tips for playing.
“My best piece of advice is to wait as long as you can before guessing,” Liu said.
“You may see the board and have completely identified the category, seeing five words that could belong in that category,” she continued. “Don’t try to guess the four words in that category because, even though you know what the fifth member is, you won’t know which of the four it might not be,” which would ultimately waste a turn.
Liu added: “Don’t do what I do, which is ‘rage solve.’”
‘Connections’ #418 Clues for Friday, August 2
Yellow: The words in this category relate to frustration and effort.
Green: Things that someone does when they play music on a turntable.
Blue: Words that are used to describe or define a noun or noun phrase.
Purple: These words all relate to a color of a different Connections category.
‘Connections’ #418 Answer for Friday, August 2
Yellow Category: STRETCH, AS ONE’S PATIENCE
Yellow Words: Strain, Tax, Test, Try
Green Category: THINGS A DJ DOES
Green Words: Mix, Sample, Scratch, Spin
Blue Category: ADJECTIVES USED IN GRAMMAR
Blue Words: Direct, Irregular, Possessive, Present
Purple Category: WHAT “GREEN” MIGHT MEAN
Purple Words: Ecological, Jealous, Lush, Nauseous
Did you guess the answers correctly? If so, congratulations. If you didn’t, there is no need to worry, as there will be another opportunity to crack Connections tomorrow. One of the best things about the puzzle is seeing if you can improve your score over time.
Connections is released at midnight in your local time zone, and Newsweek will be back tomorrow with another round of hints and tips.
The post NYT ‘Connections’ August 2: Clues and Answer for Game #418 appeared first on Newsweek.