Today's NYT Connections Hints (and Answer) for Thursday, December 7, 2023

Credit: Ian Moore

In which I lose my first Connections game ever. Join me for this historic moment and learn from my mistakes. If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Thursday, December 7, 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 7, NYT Connections #179! 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?

Do you know what a radiotelephonic spelling alphabet is? Good, you’re all set. If you watch TV, that will help, too.

Hints for the themes in today’s Connections puzzle

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

Yellow category - These are abbreviations. (I won’t say of what, though.)

Green category - Watching TV.

Blue category - Spelling words.

Purple category - Doubled up.

Does today’s Connections game involve any wordplay?

Yes. There are abbreviations, code words, and words that can be repeated. Good luck.

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?

ALFA can refer to the car maker (as in the ALFA ROMEO) or it can be the letter A in the NATO phonetic alphabet. Browse that list and see if any others look familiar, hint hint.

HI is how you say hello. It’s also what you’d need to write on a postcard to mail it to Hawaii. 

E is a letter. It’s also a television channel about entertainment. (And it’s a party drug, but that’s not important today.)

What are the categories in today’s Connections?

Yellow: STATE ABBREVIATIONS

Green: CABLE CHANNELS

Blue: IN THE NATO ALPHABET

Purple: ____-____

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 STATE ABBREVIATIONS and the words are: HI, LA, MA, OK.

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 CABLE CHANNELS and the words are: BET, E, HALLMARK, USA.

What are the blue words in today’s Connections?

The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is IN THE NATO ALPHABET and the words are: ALFA, BRAVO, ROMEO, TANGO.

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 ____-____ and the words are: BOO, POM, TOM, YO.

How I solved today’s Connections

OK, I know they are trying to trick me, with ALFA/BET and YO/LA/TANGO, among other cutesy setups. (The band, by the way, is Yo La Tengo. Nice try, Connections.) ALFA would have to be ALFA/ROMEO, the car, right? But then I remember that the alphabet used by pilots and air traffic control is designed to be readable and pronounceable by people in multiple languages, and they sometimes spell the word for letter A–Alpha–as ALFA. BRAVO, ROMEO, and TANGO are also in that alphabet. 🟦 (This is one of the random things I memorized as a child, for some reason: alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, echo, foxtrot, golf, hotel, india, kilo, lima…)

Now I feel very smart, yet I have no clue what to make of the rest. Hmm…BET and E are television channels; could they go with HALLMARK and USA? They do. 🟩 

After several more minutes of staring at the board, I think of MA-MA and BOO-BOO, children’s words. How about YO-YO and POM-POM? I’m one away. I swap POM for LA, and I’m getting colder. I make three more random guesses, and finally admit defeat. This is the first Connections game I have ever lost. TOM-TOM should have been in that group; MA-MA was not. And the rest were state abbreviations. 

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!