Today's NYT Connections Hints (and Answer) for Saturday, December 9, 2023

Credit: Ian Moore

If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Saturday, December 9, 2023, 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 December 9, NYT Connections #181! 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!

Does today’s Connections game require any special knowledge?

Nothing too out of the ordinary today.

Hints for the themes in today’s Connections puzzle

Here are some spoiler-free hints for the groupings in today’s Connections:

Yellow category - Get these at the malt shop. 

Green category - And these at the hardware shop.

Blue category - These are slippery.

Purple category - And these are the opposite of slippery.

Does today’s Connections game involve any wordplay?

There’s a fill-in-the-blank for the purple category.

Ready to hear the answers? Keep scrolling if you want a little more help.

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.)

What are the ambiguous words in today’s Connections?

A WICKET is the little wire archway you hit the ball through in croquet. There is also a WICKET in cricket, the sport that looks like bizarro world baseball. It’s from cricket we get the phrase “sticky WICKET,” meaning a difficult situation. 

To FLOAT is to stay above water, literally or metaphorically; it’s also what you call it when you drop a scoop of ice cream into a glass of root beer (a “root beer FLOAT”).

Something very interesting can RIVET you to your seat, but that comes from the meaning of RIVET as a fastener. (Jeans, for example, famously use RIVETs to reinforce the pocket seams.)

What are the categories in today’s Connections?

Yellow: ICE CREAM TREATS

Green: HARDWARE FASTENERS

Blue: COOKING OILS

Purple: STICKY ____

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 ICE CREAM TREATS and the words are: FLOAT, SHAKE, SPLIT, SUNDAE.

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 HARDWARE FASTENERS and the words are: BOLT, NAIL, RIVET, SCREW.

What are the blue words in today’s Connections?

The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is COOKING OILS and the words are: CORN, OLIVE, PALM, PEANUT

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 STICKY ____ and the words are: FINGERS, NOTE, RICE, WICKET.

How I solved today’s Connections

I get the oils first: PALM, OLIVE, CORN, PEANUT. 🟦 Then I see the “sticky” things: FINGERS, WICKET, NOTE, and the delicious dish sticky RICE. (I’m just glad they didn’t try to put “stick” in this category, like they did last time.) 🟪

BOLT, NAIL, RIVET, and SCREW pretty clearly go together. 🟩 That leaves us with desserts: FLOAT, SHAKE, SUNDAE, and a banana SPLIT. 🟨

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 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!